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The Honorable Harry Reid, U.S. Senator from Nevada.

Senator Reid is a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus. The Congressional Internet Caucus is open to members of Congress who pledge support for:

• Promoting growth and advancement of the Internet
• Providing a bicameral, bipartisan forum for Internet concerns to be raised
• Promoting the education of Members of Congress and their staffs about the Internet
• Promoting commerce and free flow of information on the Internet
• Advancing the United States' world leadership in the digital world
• Maximizing the openness of and participation in government by the people.

A major issue recently is Net Neutrality. As users require more and more bandwidth, the question becomes "who will pay for necessary upgrades to the network?" Ultimately users will pay whether direct funding comes from individual users in the form of fees, corporations, or from taxes. One model is that of the traditional Bell System where Industry and long distance users subsidize the build-out of the network to rural areas. This functioned for years as a successful socialist business system, and as such was demolished when "free market" economic theory became the predominate model for the U.S and much of the world.

Harry Reid seems to support the concept of Net Neutrality. As a condition of the merger of AT&T and SBC, the company has agreed to not discriminate against any packet until late 2008. This issue has disappeared from the discussion lately but look for it to rear it's head soon as the emphasis on upgrading our electronic infrastructure increases.