Net neutrality has been the decade’s most hotly debated topic. Today, we have a White House whose attitudes represent the antithesis of the entire concept. While it’s speculated that FCC commissioner Ajit Pai formerly supported concepts of open internet, it is well known that he is publicly against it.

My solution to the net neutrality issue is designed to be implemented on a local scale, based on the Clinton-Gore “information superhighway,” a national system of government-run servers and switches to provide vital information to every American household, much like how every house receives phone, gas, electrical and sewage service.

Unless you use well water, have propane, solar panels or a septic tank, you wouldn’t buy a house or live in one that doesn’t have these components, would you? Especially a phone line, such a basic form of communication that can also transmit data (albeit at slower speeds, unless using a sisgital subscriber line).

The Huffington Post described the “information superhighway” in detail:

There is a wire that goes into your home, school or office as everyone in America is entitled to phone service. This was based on a copper wire that was put in as part of the state-based utility and most of them are controlled by what are now AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink. And these networks were aging as almost all of America had been wired for phone service by the 1960’s. Starting in 1990s, (though it varies by state), this copper wire was supposed to be replaced with a fiber optic wire, which would allow for new innovative services, not to mention cable TV and video. And it was always supposed to be an upgrade of the state-based utility known as the “PSTN”, the “Public Switched Telephone Networks”. It was also supposed to be open to all manner of competition. You, the customer, would choose who offered you Internet, cable, broadband and even phone service over that wire.

Further, we learn that over the past 20 years, ISP customers and taxpayers have been paying into a system that was never going to happen through private enterprise:

By the end of 2014, America will have been charged about $400 billion by the local phone incumbents, Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, for a fiber optic future that never showed up. And though it varies by state, counting the taxes, fees and surcharges that you have paid every month (many of these fees are actually revenues to the company or taxes on the company that you paid), it comes to about $4000-$5000.00 per household from 1992–2014, and that’s the low number.

The progression of my plan would be pretty simple: test it out in a few, specific, targeted places, such as a town, city or county with enough resources to deploy the network, and then expand and deploy it nationwide. Some of this is already taking place with municipal broadband.