Will the Net Stay Neutral?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 7:58 AM
Subject: re Will the Net Stay Neutral?
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    By the time that presidents Roosevelt and Taft took on the rail trust, the first automobiles were puttering around the countryside. A great visionary might have speculated that trucks could come to challenge the railroads to transport commodities to market. But the interstate highway system was still decades in the future, and the threat to our economy was present.  the railroads--as "common carriers" were forced to carry goods for large producers and small at the same rates.     Today, it is possible that the stranglehold of the few internet providers will be broken by upcoming technologies. But it would be foolish to wait for that. We have statutes in place right now to keep the marketplace competitive. It is for our Executive to name the internet system as a "common carrier" and to enforce the law on it.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/opinion/nocera-a-free-net-one-way-or-another.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0