By Richard M. Sherwin and Robert Plunkett

Net Neutrality is Not Neutral anymore … And what ever happened to commercial-free TV?

There was an urban legend back in 1975 that when cable TV came to your neighborhood in a major city, you would get expanded channels in addition to the then three networks. For maybe $20 a month you would get unbelievable reception especially if your neighborhood was not in direct line to the empire state building in NYC, The Sears Tower in Chicago or the John Hancock building in Boston.

In addition, if you lived in the suburbs of a big city or you were really in a lightly populated rural area, you would finally get a lot of stations that you couldn’t get with your rabbit ears or roof antenna.

And what the Feds and local governments were also promising was that for a relatively small monthly fee, you would get entertainment and sports packages without commercials.

We all know what happened. Forty years later we pay exorbitant fees for cable TV, there are more commercials than ever and our local, state and federal politicians will take no stance against the cable monopolies because of all the campaign funds that are set up by the service provider and cable lobbies.

But wait there’s more sh——t on the horizon. The Internet, originally set up as a shared information service between colleges, schools, government information sources and just like 40 years ago, was supposed to be commercial free with very low fees to access, now costs as much as TV and, if we use the Internet as our source for TV and email and allegedly free research, is about to be unbalanced as net neutrality get smashed by the same big entertainment providers that screwed us with cable TV.

Net neutrality or network neutrality or Internet neutrality, was the original FCC rule, agreed to by service providers, the founders of the Internet and consumer groups in the U.S. that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally. A single person had the same rights to send and receive data as large corporations. No behemoth corporation, could discriminate or charge different rates for different, faster or better access by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or modes of communication. The term was coined by Columbia media law professor Tim Wu in 2003 as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, according to several government statutes.

Recently, the public has flooded the FCC with 800,000 comments on the pending changes to new neutrality rule changes. Although the sides are split almost 50-50, they are almost all based on money.

The comment period has been extended through this month. An issue is whether the Internet can be carved into so-called fast and slow lanes based on price. And that would give big cable players more power in the industry. Net neutrality is the basic FCC rule mandating that all data passing over the Internet be treated equivalently. The order, put out in 2010, prevented Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from charging content providers more for expanded access to networks, or from charging consumers for faster download speeds.

Although the idea of carving the Internet into so-called fast and slow lanes has prompted the greatest amount of public outrage, the final rules are likely to include some form of prioritization. Lobbying groups such as the Telecommunications Industry Association say having two lanes is critical to doing business. It claims the current system would undermine the networks’ ability to deliver services with the quality that users have come to expect, especially with the growing use of high-definition video for a range of needs such as telehealth and public safety.

The current open rules were set up in the early days when most communications were educational documents, personal files, library access and emails. But innovations like internet telephone calls, and streaming audio and video – all commercial endeavors – slowed down the whole system and the idea to give them privileged treatment was born. This is already happening. This week Netflix agrees to pay AT&T more money to make sure its videos arrive at customers’ homes smoothly. That has opened the door even before the FCC has ruled. And higher prices are on the way.

Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services.

In addition to AT&T, Netflix and Amazon are now paying Comcast and other providers an under the table fee to get them better and almost guaranteed faster service. This means that the next content provider with a competitive idea may not be able to afford to present their wares on the Internet. Ironically this could hamper the next great Internet based company from ever existing.

According to several authorities on the consumer side of this argument, net neutrality is the basic preservation of current technological freedoms. Vinton Cerf, considered a “father of the Internet,” as well as Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web, and many others have spoken out in favor of net neutrality as well as most consumer groups like Consumer Union .

But most Wall Street experts agree that greed will win out again as it did in the early days of Cable TV with the consumer and small entrepreneurial businesses sucking hind tit. And can you imagine what Rupert Murdoch would do if he owned an Internet provider?