content: We split up Ma Bell in 1984 but Judge Greene had his head up his ass when he did that, dividing up the country, creating the "Regional Bell Operating Companies"....which did nothing more than create regional monopolies.  Sure, we got to buy our own equipment and connect it to the network.  Big deal.  For all intents and purposes, Ma Bell still owned the network and ultimately limited what people could do with it.  They also caused initial connections to the Internet to be needlessly expensive (T1's anyone?) because it was all based on metered circuit switching technology. Now we need to split up the cable companies but create horizontal tiers in the process:   Network providers: Cablevision, Crapcast, Cox).  Sure, you can own the last mile.  Go ahead.  But no filtering or capturing of data for other purposes.  Minimum bandwidth tier will be 25 down/5 up.  You'll need to provide that with a 4-9 service level guarantee.   Application service providers: Netflix, DNS services, Certificate Authorities, etc.  Basically most of the companies that depend on the network would be here.  They would all benefit from network neutrality and the requirement for service level guarantees in the network layer.  No network providers would be allowed to play favorites or throttle Netflix streams because they have their own streaming service.  Under the new rules, this simply would not be allowed.   Content providers: The blood suckers in Hollywood, indy film producers, music producers.  All media companies.  Want access to the people?  Sell your products to all application service providers for the same price.  No favorites.  No exclusive deals.   Until this happens, companies that own stakes in all three tiers of service will be able to ass-fuck the consumer.    And yes, I'm opposed to Netflix creating its own original content, as I am Amazon creating it's original content.  All this does is force consumers to buy another service with lots of overlap.  Waste of money.  I should be able to get all available content from Netflix OR Amazon, and select the company to use based on their pricing and quality of service.