Should the Feds get involved?

That's the question of the day today. I'm going to give you links to some convincing, intelligent arguments from both sides, and you tell me what you think.

Yes, the Feds should get involved:

Some 70 percent fear that Internet providers may block or impair access to Internet services or sites, such as VoIP. And fifty-four percent want Congress to take action to ban Internet providers from engaging in the practices.


Consumers have good reason to fear. SBC, Verizon, and BellSouth have all said they plan to extort money from big Web sites or else they won't let the sites get full bandwidth. This means that consumers will be blocked from full access to those sites. And some providers have already blocked VoIP.

No, the Feds should not get involved:

Companies like Google and Yahoo pay some fees to connect to their servers to the Internet, but AT&T will collect little if any additional revenue when Yahoo starts offering new features that take up lots of bandwidth on the Internet. When Yahoo's millions of customers download huge blocks of video or play complex video games, AT&T ends up carrying that increased digital traffic without additional financial compensation.

Here's the survey: