Tim Wu offered some interesting insights into the US internet position when speaking about Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN): http://www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-is-visionary-congratulations-wu-339309182.htm "Cable companies are about television. Phone companies, they didn't like the internet, it kind of came out of nowhere. And so they're not native-born internet companies, they're sort of begrudgingly doing this because it's a certain alternative service and they're always a little nervous it'll take over in a way they won't control," said Wu. "It actually has taken over." ---- The simple version is that cable companies want to kill online video and the telcos want to kill VOIP. "Unlimited internet" is the real force opposing network neutrality - a cable company or telc can't use financial means (billing you) to stop you from using their competitor (NetFlix, Skype etc.), so they resort to selective bandwidth throttling. Australia doesn't have that problem because there has been no such thing as "unlimited" until the last 12-24 months (with several ISPs being taken to court by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for misusing the term) and our two cable companies, Telstra & Optus, only offer services to a very small proportion of the population.