MovieWithMe.com tries to reach you as fast as possible but sometimes the clutter on the web makes it slow to load. Is the problem bandwidth clogging or transmission slogging? Here are the facts: in the US we have less choice, slower speeds, and pay more for broadband than most first world countries (Europe, Asia, South America). That is because our government allows de facto monopolies on broadband service. You’ve usual got two choices: the cable company or the phone company.

Neither one has much incentive to give you more speed or charge you less-unless the other one does too. Fat chance of that. Meanwhile the clogging of the pipes gets worse. More data like HD movies are creating traffic jams. The service providers plead: if only they could be like a traffic cop and look at what’s inside those electronic trucks full of content–they could let the emergency vehicles and important cargo through first. That’s called packet inspection. (NSA did deep packet inspection for Bush’s war on terror). The cable and telephone broadband companies want to apportion speed to content they think is more important. Let’s say Time Warner Cable determines by inspection that CNN is much more widely ordered by users than BBC. Shouldn’t they be able to give those packets priority reaching users? Oh, did I forgot to say Time-Warner also owns CNN?

You can bet that no matter what the FCC mandates for new rules on “Net Neutrality,” the cable and phone companies are going to thread it with so many loop holes they will keep their monopolies. When you play the game of Monopoly someone eventually winds up owning all the properties and all the money. Comcast, Time-Warner, AT&T and Verizon are not going to see other media businesses flourish on the web while they get only measly monthly rental payments from you.