Danejasper

Yes.

You could start a wireless ISP. Learn how by joining WISPA.

Yes, where we buy bulk commercial access, it is treated neutrally and is not subject to the standard retail privacy policies. But also note that we offer a free VPN feature, so you can tunnel your traffic directly to our network too if you'd prefer.

I always imagined it would be impossible to have a small, independent ISP because of the cost of infastructure. Has that been an issue for you, and do you think it's possible as people become more fed up with the giants that smaller ISPs will form?

I have always been a believer in the potential for competitive access. And honestly, I doubt we'd need strong neutrality and privacy policies in place if consumers had twenty five ISPs to choose from that all delivered high speed access; the market would punish companies that behaved badly.

But in an oligopoly, with just one or two choices for consumers seeking fast access, we need regulatory policy to protect both consumers and online services.

As to the challenges of starting and operating a competitive alternative, clearly it is possible, but the costs and execution are challenging. But there are success stories, see for example Socket, Ting, Cruzio, Gorge and EPB.

It is important to support these competitive challengers, so I encourage you to find a competitive provider in your market, get started here: BroadBandNow

Good question. Many forms of neutrality violation may be undetectable by the source, who will simply see the end-user connection as a slower speed link than it should be. But for large sources of content, they'll see peering and interconnection congestion, and likely will be asked to pay for connection upgrades to reach their customers.