I don’t understand what you mean by att being forced to comply with being carrier neutral. Since DSL utilizes the telephony network and cable does not they are both regulated seperately and differently it’s kudos for comcast and other cable providers for doing it different.

As a comcast customer I think all these new doings are related to a number of items. #1 is comcast has it’s own network. As big/small as it may be they do provide their own backbone to customers, some may be using more of it then others. Since they aren’t directly putting users online and are routing them through their own network users obviously have to comply with all demands and laws that they list. If you want to do it in private, then your going to have to colo your own dsl equipment at the telco because I don’t think the cable companies are going to scoot over and let you co-locate your equipment at their facilitys anymore then I think privacy will improve with any new companies, they might start out being all for privacy, but once the company grows, they will be just like everyone else.

My only concern about Comcast at this point is that they are not currently required by law to adhere to network neutrality, as AT&T DSL service is. This is because of technical differences between what is legally defined as a “broadcast service” (Comcast cable) vs what is a “telecommunications service” (AT&T DSL). Apparently Comcast is already routinely blocking P2P file transfer, such as Bittorrent.

See: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202600785

I don’t know if this same phenomenon would affect the streaming of video or audio from sites such as http://www.freakradio.org or http://www.democracynow.org, but it might.

So now we have a choice. Give up our privacy rights by going with AT&T. Or give up freedom of speech by going with Comcast. AT&T also blocks content. The example that comes to mind is AT&T deleted some of the lyrics that a rock band was singing which put down George Bush.

Comcast’s Internet/unlimited phone/cable TV business packages are now almost the same price as their 3 product home user packages. So it might be worth it for businesses to get T-1 speeds for a DSL price and dump AT&T.

I still am looking for a company that doesn’t sell or give away or infringe on any of my rights. When such a company is shown to exist, without charging a fortune for its services, I will gladly purchase all of my phone/tv/internet services from them.