A headline in a Washington trade publication said it all:

“Passions are sure to run high with reintroduction of Net neutrality legislation.”

(Source: Warren’s Washington Internet Daily)

As the old lawyer’s saying goes, when the facts are against you, pound on the law. When the law’s against you, pound on the facts. And when both are against you, pound on the table.

So before passions run high, let’s recap a few facts about today’s Internet:

• Annual percent increase in Internet traffic (2005-06) – 60 percent

• Average number of spam emails sent per day (October 2006) – 61 billion

• Percent increase from October 2005 – 100 percent

• Percent of 2006 VOIP calls judged to have “unacceptable quality” – 19 percent

• U.S. world ranking in broadband access – 16th

• Percent of major Internet carriers that abide by the FCC’s nondiscrimination principles – 100 percent

The list could go on, but the point for Net users is that online quality is dropping as traffic surges and deployment remains slow. Neutrality regulations not only won’t help, they’ll just make things worse.