LEAKED: Telcos' Secret Plans to Use Fake "Citizens Groups" to KILL Net Neutrality

ThinkProgress has a leaked copy of a telcoms industry PowerPoint presentation laying out their plans to use astroturf to kill Network Neutrality. The industry is hiring the same turfers who work with the Tea Party movement to carry their message to the people.

What the telcos want to do is reduce your access to websites and services unless those services have paid a bribe for "premium carriage" to you. So Google buys its bandwidth from its ISP. You buy your bandwidth from your ISP. Then your ISP goes to Google and says, "If you want to send your bits to our customers when they ask for them, you'll have to pay us too." If Google doesn't pay, the ISP slows down its bits when you ask for them. They call this "free and unregulated internet access for content flow and connectivity speed free and unregulated internet access for content flow and connectivity speed."

. . . . the telcos and cable operators got a huge public subsidy when we agreed to let them use our public sewers, tunnels and streets (not to mention our houses and basements) for their wires. We give them all this for free or far below the market costs. . . . Now they're saying they don't want to give us the service we want. Literally. That's what fighting Net Neutrality is about: it's ISPs fighting for the right to slow down or discard the bits you, the customer, ask for.

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If AT&T and Comcast don't want to give us the service we want, let them buy every inch of conduit and right-of-way at market prices. . . .

This morning, representatives from various front groups launched a new coordinated campaign to kill net neutrality. . . .