An interesting article over at DailyTech speaks to the idea that strange bedfellows are made in the most unusual places in this life.

In an about face for AT&T, and an odd vocalization of anything from Verizon, statements were made indicating that the odd pair agree that net neutrality is a good idea, and that the FCC can, and should make some decision in the Comcast Bittorrent conundrum.

from DailyTech

Speaking at the NxtComm trade show in Las Vegas, AT&T senior executive vice president Jim Cicconi and Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke implored the FCC to assert its authority and make a decision in the ongoing Comcast debate, which it has presided over since an investigation and series of town hall meetings earlier this year.

“It’s in the best interest of the industry for the FCC to make a judgment on the Comcast/BitTorrent case,” said Tauke. “None of us want to be in a world where there is a sense that nobody is watching what is going on.”

The FCC has the ability to prove that Congress is adequately capable of enforcing the FCC’s policy of openness, agreed Cicconni.

“The Comcast case has brought the debate over Net neutrality into specifics,” said Cicconi, before noting that new laws based around a largely theoretical, hypothetical debate could be “disastrous” for the cellular industry.

An AP report on Comcast’s policy of “data discrimination,” released late last year, turned much of the internet and blogging community upside down as it was discovered that Comcast actively interfered with subscribers’ BitTorrent connections and made it impossible to “seed.” As consumer outrage mounted, theorists behind the ongoing Network Neutrality debate – which centers largely on future predictions of how ISPs choose to run a growing internet – suddenly had a real-world case to cite, adding weight to the arguments of neutrality’s proponents and furthering pressure on telecoms and ISPs.

Amidst fears of moving to a “tiered” internet infrastructure, where certain websites can get “premium” treatment by paying a toll of sorts to ISPs, internet providers are fighting long and hard to prevent the creation of additional laws governing how they run their networks. Traditionally, this also resulted in a hostile attitude towards FCC interference – but it appears that ISPs have begun to change their stance with the FCC amidst what might be an otherwise inevitable change.

While the FCC has yet to decide how it’s going to handle Comcast – a decision is expected sometime this summer – Comcast agreed to end its practice of “data discrimination” sometime within the next year, and announced joint ventures between BitTorrent, Inc – proprietors of the open BitTorrent protocol – and Pando Networks in order to seek ways to further optimize BitTorrent traffic.

When companies who would benefit from the disregard of net neutrality, come together to support the concept, you know that something is up. Every day I look around, and see more and more encroachment upon our lives and freedoms by the huge corporations, and government. When, in a small way, it is possible for our government to do the work it was out here to do, we must do all we can to help. Information is power, and the power must be available to all, without any artificial problems put there by anyone or anything.

On the other hand, there is as much damage possible when the government steps in as when they don’t. Small, meaningful interferences, with quick extrication from the situation, is how the government should operate on this.

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Technorati Tags: net neutrality - AT&T - Verizon - Comcast - freedom - government intercession - BitTorrent