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[classhandicapper]

1. I have owned shares in Level 3 Communications on and off for last 17 years. It just closed a deal is now called Century Link.

2. During that entire time (including now), I belonged to a forum that is dedicated to discussing Level 3, the telecommunication industry, and issues like net neutrality, stock prices etc..

3. The people that participate are private investors, telecommunications executives, stock analysts, and money managers.

From experience, I would suggest you not believe anything you are reading in the media. They are a bunch of clueless dolts that are repeating the same tired arguments and scare tactics that have been coming from both sides all along. I've been reading this nonsense for 10 years. The smartest objective people in the industry barely understand all the ramifications and don't agree even when they do. After all these years nether do I and at times I've had a very significant amount of money at stake.

There was only one thing I came away with from all the debates. The bottom line is that in order to handle the ever expanding amounts of data and information flowing through the internet, telecommunications companies have to keep investing in capacity and new technology (including last mile). The billions they invest have to be recovered.

There are really only 2 ways to do that.

1. Charge the end consumer more money for their internet access because they are demanding more data, faster speeds etc.. and the only way it can be delivered is by making larger and new investments. They could use different charging models, but bottom line is prices for consumers have to go up.

2. Charge the individual companies based on how much data they are sending through the pipes. The most popular sites would get charged more.

If they choose option one everyone will scream they have a strong business position and are using that position to pillage consumers.

If they close option two, the companies getting charged will scream and then charge the consumer for access to recover their costs. Then everyone will scream that they don't get Twitter, Google and whatever else for free anymore.

Well guess what?

Nothing is free.

Someone has to pay for the pipes. So while everyone is arguing whether or not the last mile pipe owners might choose to slow the traffic of competitors or do something else to gain an advantage or whether major left leaning information providers are controlling the information getting to end users, WE ARE GOING TO PAY EITHER WAY. The rest of it is BS. I'm not sure the smartest people in the industry have any idea how it's all going to play out. I have seen no problem either way.