ISPs will lose this argument, and not because governments will necessarily ban them from charging content providers, but because if they try, the content providers will just cut them off. Users care more about Netflix and Youtube than they do about who provides the pipe to their home, and they'll switch in droves once they can't access Youtube anymore. Content providers are in the position of power here.
Maybe a couple of cities in the US have more than one broadband provider, but most of us only have one choice. If netflix decided to cut off cox communications as well as qwest, I would be SOL.
Me too. Hope: Google's dark fiber, Verizon's fios, WiMax providers.
Actually I have a fantasy in which Google becomes an ISP. I'm not sure why it doesn't. It has the cash and the corporate friends, and it certainly could help make its own (YouTube) problems go away by getting into the business of the last mile.
Most places in the US only have two major providers. The regional monopolies on telephone service and cable tv service have extended themselves to DSL and Cable Internet, respectively. On the whole, it translates to a handful of companies nation-wide which have regional monopolies on either the last-mile coax or phone lines to customers.
In general, all of these big players are playing the same angles. So if the two big players in my area are Qwest and Comcast, and both of them are trying to play hardball with Netflix, then where does the consumer turn when Netflix cuts off access to both of them? Well, both Qwest and Comcast will gladly step up to plate with their own Netflix-like offering that isn't of the same quality, but 'good enough' for most consumers who just can't be bothered to try and seek out a better experience (they would rather just gripe about it, but put up with it). This is the same thing that happened with PVRs and TiVo. Most of the cable companies went to lengths to shut out TiVo and delay things like CableCard 2.0 as much as possible while rolling out their own solutions and pricing them into existing service packages.
TV/Internet services compete heavily. Here it is ATT and Comcast (though in my particular neighborhood ATT doesn't offer DSL yet). If Comcast were to push Netflix to the point where Netflix cut them off, the BOOM mass migration of consumers to ATT. And vice versa. I think the temptation to convert another provider's customer would be too strong for the provider to withstand.
So your are really only SOL if you have only one choice. In which case I'd prefer to do without. Except for Netflix, I could do most of my other online activities fairly well over dial-up.
I think you're wrong - if Netflix users are costing Comcast too much, Comcast would rub its hands together and cackle with glee if they all became AT&T's problem (while Grandma who writes an e-mail a week and looks at pictures of her grandkids doesn't bother switching).
The limitations of on the number of providers is a regulatory one. Regulations can be changed. The big corporations may have money, but money often loses out to angry constituents.
I haven't, but they sound interesting now that I know what they are. Mind you, my skills as a (non-computer) hardware geek are pretty weak.
Of course, I work seriously weird hours, so....
EDIT: Ouch. My ~4PM-whenever workdays are seriously incompatible with all the public meetings I see on HeatSync's page. Don't they ever have stuff on the weekends?
In many places, there are only 1, sometimes 2 choices for internet. If AT&T or Charter (my 2 choices) wanted to make it hard or more expensive for me to receive Netflix, there would be little as a consumer I could.
If the ISPs end up losing here it'll be because their customers will decide there's no point in getting a fast connection. Every use you'd put it to is throttled, blocked, or costs too much.
At that point you shop around for the absolute minimum price connection.
