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Essay / The Pros and Cons of Net Neutrality - 537
First, the mechanics of the Internet must be understood in order to understand the argument for Net Neutrality. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are the actual channels of the Internet that deliver Content and Service Providers (CSPs) to Consumers (IUs) (Kramer). The Net Neutrality debate, or more accurately the Net Non-Neutrality debate, was first sparked by Ed Whitacre, the CEO of ATT in 2005 after his statement: "Now, what [network providers] content] would like to do is use my channels for free, but I'm not going to let them do that because we've spent this capital and we need to get a return on it” (Kramer). He was referring to CSPs such as Google and Yahoo projecting an unlimited, unregulated amount of bandwidth to be processed on ATT servers. ISPs, including ATT, are expressing concern about the proposed project. Net neutrality rules that would prohibit it from slowing down competitors' web traffic or accessing content (Shatz). By not allowing ISPs to regulate their network and the bandwidth that passes through it, this can lead to a whole host of problems that can arise....