We’ve been watching many of the same talking points infest the Net Neutrality debate.

To me, the only color involved in this issue is green, the color of money. Nobody is honestly claiming that minority groups are any more prone to being hoodwinked by industry propaganda than any other group. This is about as color-blind of an issue you can get.

I call them as I see them. Having been involved in the non-profit world for several years, I know only too well how often money can bring influence, and nobody likes to upset a donor base. I don’t care if it’s Verizon, Google, or some PR firm laundering special interest money to hide where it started. As a consumer, the power of money to influence public policy agendas and sidetrack legitimate debate is a major concern of mine, and it’s not limited to one issue.

We probably agree entirely on getting affordable broadband to all Americans. I personally don’t care who does it, as long as it gets done. If I had my way, we’d run a broadband-ification program in this country just like electrification in the 1930s. Every American should have the right of affordable access.

Private providers want to be the ones in charge of doing that. They’ve been given a completely deregulated platform to do it since the late 1990s. We’ve seen the results. In almost every community, there are really just two dominant providers – the cable company and the phone company. In rural areas, there is only one — the phone company.

For the urban poor, redlining neighborhoods and bypassing those areas providers believe will not generate big returns has been an issue since the first cable systems were wired. Franchise agreements mandated that areas be provisioned for service equally. It’s a point of contention to this day by this industry, which seeks to “streamline” the process by removing “overregulation” in the form of local government or city oversight and adopt statewide franchises. Entire astroturf campaigns championing “cable competition and choice” pushed this agenda, but after all was said and done, those states that bought into it, which often also included a ban on municipally-run networks, have been left with the same two competitors – one cable and one phone company and a lot of questions about where the savings and access are.

It’s worse in rural areas where return on investment is deemed too low to wire anything. Many of those folks are stuck relying on satellite “broadband” (which is anything but) or dial-up.

Net Neutrality has been made out to be everything from Marxist takeover to a secret plan for Obama to censor the Internet on the right, and frankly 90% of the heat on this issue comes from the Glenn Beck types. On the left, most of the debate seems centered on the provider argument that if you pass Net Neutrality, we’ll have to raise prices to handle everyone’s equal traffic.

We’ve been up and down this issue in excruciating detail based on our experience with the precise same arguments for usage caps, consumption billing, and other Internet Overcharging schemes. The same provider dog and pony show was trotted out on overcharging schemes that you’re now seeing on Net Neutrality.

But once you start digging, you learn it’s all one giant scare tactic, custom tailored for different groups in hopes of bringing them on board the telecom industry’s side. Rural communities are threatened with no broadband at all unless industry agenda “x” is supported. Urban communities are told we’ll have to raise prices dramatically because people in the suburbs are overusing their accounts.

At the root of all of this is money and control. I urge you to begin reviewing the financial reports of major broadband providers. Read about their profits, their cost-savings from decreased investment in their networks, and their actual bandwidth costs.

Broadband providers argue that it’s somehow unfair for them to transport someone else’s content without them paying part of the freight. But of course they are in the business of providing that connectivity, earn billions in profits from doing so, have the right to create and distribute their own value-added content (TV Everywhere being a perfect example), and also host content produced by third parties on servers they own and manage.

Internet traffic is growing, but so is the technology to manage that growth, and both can be managed with reasonable investment and still leave plenty of profit along the way.

Even more important to spur more affordable broadband service is the promotion of existing “lite service” tiers which are usually just as fast as real-world mobile broadband networks at half the price of “standard service.” Most people have no idea these service plans even exist.

Increased competition is even more key, and breaking up the duopoly in broadband is critical to drive prices down. In many communities, municipalities seek better connectivity and are prohibited from providing it because of industry-written and tailored legislation designed to keep them out of the broadband marketplace, even without taxpayer dollars involved. Our coverage of the situation in North Carolina this week is an excellent example of that at work.

Broadband is rapidly becoming a utility and must not be allowed to wither at the hands of unregulated corporate providers who want to keep pricing high and competition low.

I also cannot overemphasize how important it is to review what is happening in Canada, because it mirrors the direction the American broadband industry would take us if their agenda was adopted. They promised, they threatened, they frankly lied. Net Neutrality is not protected in Canada and prices have increased, broadband expansion is driven by federal government stimulus programs, and access is now limited. Competition is also impacted because the wholesale market has been effectively ceded to Bell, which makes darn sure no independent provider can challenge their business model.

As I’ve also written, I favor wholesale reform of the USF which is mired in waste, fraud, and abuse. Directing affordable access to Americans disadvantaged by access or economic limitations is the right thing to do because of the enormous benefits broadband can bring to education, the economy, and the next generation of digital jobs.

My personal view is that there are honest debates to be had here, but the side issue of color or ethnicity doesn’t belong in any of it. But you must also be willing to recognize there is a political agenda to bring minority interests into this debate in an effort to sway minority lawmakers. Some of these groups go out of their way to play up their affiliation as part of their lobbying efforts with elected officials, which is why they are valuable to the telecommunications industry in this debate. Questioning those groups on why they hold the positions they do, whether or not telecommunications money is involved, and expecting honest answers is not attacking or demeaning a minority group — I’m interested in exactly the same issues with all 100+ members of Broadband for America, which include equipment manufacturers, health care groups, minority interests, groups for rural America, etc. Near all of them had significant telecommunications funding, virtually all make no mention of their affiliation with BfA on their websites, and frankly don’t seem terribly involved in the issue except through the page of talking points they were handed along with a check.

Really, you and I probably know 1000% more about this issue than many of these groups. As a consumer, I want to know why they hold the positions they do. When there are no answers beyond tailor-written talking points forthcoming, what should consumers think?

I think consensus should be built around our shared goal of getting affordable, plentiful broadband service into every part of this country. I believe our best chance of doing that is not simply adopting the agenda of the telecommunications industry and believe they’ll complete the job they’ve refused to do since the late 1990s. Deregulating utility services and dismissing oversight as pesky government interference, as the industry is prone to say, has not exactly worked out too well for us in this country these days.

Net Neutrality, to protect the integrity of content and avoid abusive practices is critical to that goal, not to protect Google’s profits, but to protect customers’ right of access.

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

First and foremost, I am a technologist with over 15 years of experience, and have worked in large companies and started my own entrepreneurial endeavors from scratch. I ‘ve decided to share my thoughts through my writing, giving speeches and other forums to encourage other minorities to get involved in technology and understand the opportunities. To suggest that my thoughts are not my own is offensive and shows you really have not taken a look at my background.

I also encourage you to read my blog to get a better understanding of my diverse areas of interest related to technology and broadband, which not only come directly from my own personal experiences as a black man who has used technology to succeed and help others succeed, but also as an expert who works hard so others can enjoy and benefit from the power of technology.

If you’d like to engage in a thoughtful discussion on these issues I’d be more than prepared to have that discussion and would welcome the opportunity to engage in a substantive back and forth on these issues.

Phil, I know (at least I hope) your intent wasn’t to suggest that people of color have been “swayed by industry propaganda” and aren’t capable of thinking for ourselves on technology issues. One of the reasons I started writing about these issues is to help other minorities fully understand all the implications of the discussions going on now surrounding this issue. We don’t benefit if we only hear from people who are pushing a certain agenda; that’s no way for people to make their own informed decisions. Who knows, we may find (as others on opposite sides of the net neutrality issue are starting to realize) that we have more areas of agreement than disagreement than we might think.