We have been through the ringer and heard it all when it comes to our ISP.  You know the drill.  You contact the only ISP located in your area, sign up for service because they are the only one in your area and then you go on your ignore campaign towards all of the bells and whistles that the ISP promised you. They promised high bandwidth, up and down speed that puts their competitors to shame, always on 99.9% uptime, plus A+ support.  You pay an exorbitant price for the best just to be let down.  

Unfortunately… consumers today hear the hype but they don’t expect it.  Very few complain.  Those that do complain get the run around because everyone knows support is not support if it concerns ISP's.  Promises are not taken seriously and no one cares if your ISP carrier is giving you the sham. Business as always is what the ISP wants and hell with the consumer.

ISP’s are tricky little bastards when you do complain they scoot your attention over to their website and tell you to read carefully their user agreement that states that you are never promised the same speeds 24 hours a day.  Yup they cover their backsides and because even if you did have another ISP in the area their setup is not much different from the one you are getting now.  You might as well bend over and take it.  It's the same shameful disgusting sham, with a new name.  This is how they nail you.  They can promise you anything, but really it depends on the area that you live in and rather if that area is in the top of places that is heavily congested.  If you have just one ISP then it's "Hello sucker!"

Here is what you don’t know

ISP’s are the last bastion between you and the Internet.  They are not the top dogs selling you Internet service, they are the bottom tier.  Think of how a farm works the Farmer is the top dog, next is the land, and bottom is the shovel.  In ISP farm land the ISP’s are the shovel.

The top dog of the Internet is, “Level 3 Communications Inc.”.  They are the ones that sell blocks of IPs to the ISPs. The ISPs use firmware/hardware to distribute the IPs and bandwidth to the consumer.  In Internet jargon the ISPs supply the last mile to the consumer.  The ISP are the ones that set price, speed, bandwidth, and Level 3 Communications gives all broadband ISPs the same high speed, the rest is up to the ISP!  ISP's create their own disgusting service!

So what is Level 3 Communications saying about ISPs?

“No matter how fast Level 3's own wires are, broadband consumers will only see speeds as fast as their broadband ISPs will allow — and Taylor says they're not allowing much.”  Six are permanently at peak capacity, resulting in traffic congestion, lost data and slower speeds.

Level 3 stated they only need to upgrade their equipment but they refuse to do so.  "All six are large broadband consumer networks with a dominant or exclusive market share in their local market."

Level 3 did not mention names but stated too that, the same companies in America that refuse to update are the same ones with very low customer satisfaction.   On the website Toms Hardware they did mention these companies by name.  They are: “The companies that came in last in that report are, in order of least satisfaction: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, AT&T U-Verse and Cox Communications. None has major European operations, implying that at least one is not among Taylor's five offenders.” 

The top lawyer for Level 3 communications (Mooney) stated that; “Accused American broadband ISPs of slowing down their "last mile" connections in order to extort fees from heavy content providers such as Netflix.  These ISPs break the Internet by refusing to increase the size of their networks unless their tolls are paid.” in countries or markets where consumers have multiple broadband choices (like the UK), there are no congested peers.  Our European country counterparts regulate broadband as a common carrier, meaning that several ISPs are allowed to offer service over the same high-speed last-mile lines. In those countries, consumer broadband service is both cheaper and faster than it is in the U.S.

So now what?

It’s important for the consumer to understand that the ISPs are the guilty party that is forcing the Government into creating Net Neutrality rules and changing the Internet to a carrier communications. It is not the Government they would lots rather the ISPs just play nice and keep the Internet open as it was meant to be since day one of its creation.   In recent years the ISPs have clearly misrepresented themselves.  They make it sound as though they have no choice, and that Net Neutrality will harm the Internet.   But if what they claim was true then the Internet today would not be a welcomed avenue for business or the consumer.  Both would be avoiding the Internet like it was a plague.  This is not the case, and you need to see the stunts that ISPs have done, or tried to do in the past that has caused concern about the direction the Internet is going, then you will understand exactly what is going on.

Epilogue

I am including links in this article and I encourage everyone to read them because the main news media is not mentioning any of this in their broadcast, papers, TV, radio, magazines, or Internet sites.  An informed consumer is the best kind of consumer to have.  Some of these articles may look to be over your head in Tech speech, but you need to still read over them and perhaps we can have a good discussion below on what all of this means to the consumer? I believe I will be making a part two in the near future. 

Remember as you read no one really owns the Internet, it's just a select few ISP's that think they do. Out of every article on the Net, and this includes mine here, the main person with the most hands on information to me is Level 3 Communications.  In the battle of Net Neutrality, I don't believe ISPs should even have the right to say how the Internet should be run. I think ISPs should just keep their mouths shut.

Toms Guide is the top article for you to read.  Wrote in such a way that the ordinary consumer can grasp what this is all about.  http://www.tomsguide.com/us/net-neutrality-comcast-level3,news-1873...

Another… http://www.tomsguide.com/us/net-neutrality-free-speech,news-18792.html

Last  http://www.tomsguide.com/us/obama-net-neutrality-statement-meaning,...

Level 3 Communications blog has a few articles.  Some you may grasp a little and others a lot.

http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/chicken-game-played-child-isps...

http://blog.level3.com/open-internet/observations-internet-middleman/

I picked these pages because they give you the real meaning to what is really going on without the hype of what it is not.  Net Neutrality is not and never should be what the ISPs want; it should be based only on the businesses and the consumer end.  ISPs offer a service that is already in place by Level 3 Communications.  It is not, and never has been the other way around.  Don’t be the ISP’s fools. They want you to believe they have no choice.  Fact is the choice has been theirs all along.