If the post office worked this way, when you went to mail a letter, they would cut it into pieces, copy the address onto each piece and send each one independently though the system. The letter carrier at the receiving end would then reassemble it when all the pieces arrived. You wouldn't know in what order they'd arrive, and you wouldn't be able to prescribe the path your packets would take.

"Network neutrality" is a theory stating that in order to provide the best benefit to all users of a network, each and every packet travelling on the network should be treated equally by all parts of the network. When a network is neutral, all traffic is roughly homogenized in terms of speed of delivery. This is how the Internet works currently.

On a neutral network, all players are on an even playing field. This means that when I show video on my Web site, it travels across the Internet at the same speed as any other Web site using the same equipment as I am. However, some big providers want to break from network neutrality and sell the prioritization of network traffic, sort of like express mail. Because on a neutral network you cannot dictate the order in which your packets arrive, they can get jumbled. This can cause skipping in music, bad pictures in video and can kill a phone call. Prioritization could fix that. The problem is, that creates a financial incentive for network providers to prioritize their own services' traffic over their competitors', or to slow their competitors down, making them look bad. This gives network providers the power to squeeze competition out of the marketplace; neutral networks do not.

But if neutral networks are truly better, then companies not providing them will be punished by the markets. End of story, right?

Well, placing so much control over network traffic into so few hands could easily distort the free market and what may be the best product for consumers could be prevented from winning.

For example, right now I am paying only $24.99 per month for Vonage phone service over the Internet. That means my phone calls go out over the high-speed Internet connection that I buy from Comcast. Comcast offers phone service now for $34.99 a month. Vonage is cheaper, but that nice lower price is possible because network neutrality stipulates that Vonage packets have the same priority as Comcast's service on Comcast's network.

Without network neutrality, there's nothing to prevent Comcast from degrading Vonage's service, or forcing Vonage to pay a premium to reach Comcast subscribers, thus causing Vonage to increase their rates, and artificially forcing my hand in an economic decision.

I'm not saying Comcast would do it, I'm just saying that there would be financial incentive to do so, and nothing to prevent it.

This affects you personally because you don't have much choice of Internet providers. By and large, no company is allowed to string new wire in your neighborhood, and breaking from network neutrality would give the providers from which you can choose the artificial ability to force your hand in decision-making. It would essentially entail distorting free-market capitalism toward socialism and state-sanctioned monopolies.

I'm not saying that abuse will happen; however, it is very clear that breaking from network neutrality produces financial incentives to choke access to competition at every point in the network.

Free markets only work if they are free and open to the public. Prioritization would definitely be a great product to sell in the marketplace. We need to be very wary to make sure that it not be allowed to close the marketplace to the public.

That means you.

Visit Ken Ehrman at www.groggyjava.tv.