In short, the phone companies spent all the money the gov gave them years ago to upgrade the internet. They spent it on big ceo bonus checks, and now they are hurting.
The real deal is, the phone companies want to charge you more for what you use, in a tier system. Rather than making bandwidth cheaper, faster, for everyone, free if people want. It's masked under the idea of keeping the net, free of restrictions, but not free of account regulations based on the price you spend.
We want to go the direction of Japan, we are going the direction of a 3rd world country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality