"Structural Separation" (a Net Neutrality alternative) is not going to fly

Russell Shaw at ZDNet posted a link to this isen.blog article and asked, "Why not both."

This has an appealing simplicity, but it's not going to happen for several reasons.

1. It's not clear that there's a business to be made in pure transport. Even old Ma Bell offered services. Stripping these companies down to the wire (so to speak) may make it difficult for them to invest in infrastructure.
2. Define "content". Comcast's front-page news site? Their voice-mail site? Their cable service? After all, all those things can be provided by third-parties over the ISP network. Are you really going to make ISPs get out of the telephone business so that they can just sell bits-on-a-wire?
3. Any attempt to define companies in terms of current technology is doomed to failure over the long run—and in this case we don't even have to look to the future to see this. It's clear that there are services which are more efficient to run within the network. These include VoIP and (hah) P2P applications (as someone on Nanog pointed out—it may even make more sense for ISPs to be encouraging internal P2P usage if they want to lighten the overall load). That doesn't mean that external providers shouldn't be able to compete on level ground (e.g. Net Neutrality), but it does mean that it makes no sense to prevent network providers from offering services which earn them money and benefit their customers. You don't want to legislate inefficiency.
4. Finally, it just won't fly in Congress or the courts. You don't legislate divestiture, prevent mergers and acquisitions, in order to prevent problems which a) have barely occured and b) can be solved in other ways. And Structural Separation is a divestiture on the order the Bell breakup. It's just not going to happen.