Google, Verizon, and the Cloudy Future of Net Neutrality

The net neutrality Internet is like a series of happy pipes, glad to see all kinds of data. Thanks to our Flickr pool's zenobia_joy for this wonderful shot.

Special to The SunBreak by Mark Rushing of Orbis Lumen

[Ed.: A proposed agreement between Google and Verizon has pundits debating its merits at warp speed, while pixels are still free. Wired has the "real" story. HuffPo has seen it all before. We asked Mark to take a step back and give us the lay of the land. Here's the first part in a series on net neutrality.]

Would you be happier if you no longer were charged for voice minutes? What if you were no longer charged for voice minutes, but strangely you had unlimited voice talk time?

What if you suddenly had unlimited text messaging capabilities for free? And unlimited multimedia messaging as well? And what if you also were given a new telephone number for free, that rang your cell phone and home phone simultaneously, or any other phone, too? And all your voice mail messages were  recorded and transcribed, then emailed to you, and you never had to worry about copying people and their contact information to your phone again?

Well, you can get this right now, and the mobile telephone companies are not too pleased. Google, one of the Great Horsemen of the ongoing Internet Apocalypse--which is seeing the slow demise of such power institutions as traditional newspapers, the music industry, publishing, and is transforming the way we perceive our role in government, international issues, and the way we organize--well, Google is ruffling the feathers of the Powers that Be, namely the very few companies who own all the pipes that this Internet thing flows through.

And the power that forced these giants to allow others--such as Google--room to grow was...you and me, through the principles of net neutrality.

We may smugly believe the Internet has already arrived, but it is actually still in the process of arriving. And sometimes this behemoth of decentralized interconnections between us looks more like a planet crashing in ultra-slow motion through a steel and glass china shop than it looks like, well, just an amorphous thing of stuff, doing this and that. That china shop has been many things. Right now, that steel-girdered china shop is the mobile telecommunications industry, and they're doing all they can to stop that world from crashing through it.... (more)