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Heaviest users of Web face limits on 'unlimited' - Chicago Tribune

I've been reading about this particular theme for a long time now; personally I believe content providers and network providers should, by necessity, be wholly separate entities so as to avoid conflicting interests.

Companies such as Comcast and Time Warner also fear becoming a "dumb pipe"—providing the conduit for data-intensive Internet activity but not managing the flow or making any money from it.

Why should they get to make money from the flow? They already get to make money from simply providing the access. These companies, much like the railroad companies of yore, have been provided with the chance to make investments in these kinds of networks, spreading their infrastructure across public spaces that they do not own, and can never own.

As far as I'm concerned, the pipe providers might as well be government-sponsored and chartered corporations like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Housing-loan-wholesalers and dumb-pipe-providers, although operating for a profit, exist to provide a public service - increasing the access and price efficiency of home loans or internet access.

Access to information is a basic human need, something that has been coming to peoples' attention in regards to the switch from over-the-air analog TV to a purely digital transmission medium.

These are just growing pains. The issue of information access is too essential to the health of our people for us to allow these corporations to set strong-arm policies regarding the use of the network infrastructure we allowed them to build.