On some recent posts, I’ve seen comments that equate net neutrality with censorship of speech on the web. That’s not quite what the debate is about. Net neutrality is about whether the companies that offer internet access (cable providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable and wireless companies like AT&T and Verizon) have the right slow down internet traffic on their networks to favor some sites and services over others. Should Comcast be able to charge Netflix fees because so many Comcast customers are using their internet connections to stream Netflix content (if it did, Netflix would surely pass along those costs to its subscribers). Or consider this example taken from a recent interview on NPR with law professor Susan Crawford:

Under a recent court decision, Internet service providers, primarily cable companies, aren’t required to treat all websites equally. They can make deals to provide faster service to some, or slow down sites that refuse to pay them extra fees. Law professor Susan Crawford says you may be experiencing the effects of this — without realizing it.

Why, for example, do you have to wait for YouTube videos to buffer? Crawford explains: “You may think it’s the YouTube application. You may think there is something wrong with your computer. It’s probably the network provider making life unpleasant for YouTube because YouTube has refused to pay in order to cross its wires to reach you. And we’ll be seeing much more of that kind of activity in the future.”

This interview with Susan Crawford is great for clearly laying out the issues and for pointing out just how the lack of competition in the United States has lead us to have miserably slow and overpriced broadband internet access as compared to other developed nations.