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Consumer advocates push for network neutrality
Principle would ensure Internet users had the freedom to access content of
their choice, attach devices of their choice, and run applications of their
choice
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
December 02, 2005
WASHINGTON - Would Internet users want to pay $0.05 every time they visit
Google.com, Yahoo.com or any other Web site? That's one possibility if the
U.S.
Congress fails to include strong "network neutrality" rules as it debates a
comprehensive telecom reform bill, a group of open Internet advocates said
Friday.
A more likely possibility: Broadband providers such as Verizon
Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. block access to services such as
competing VOIP (voice over
Internet Protocol) services or video downloads, said panelists at an open
Internet forum for congressional staffers in Washington, D.C.
While charging users a fee to visit some Web sites may be an unlikely
scenario, large broadband providers could slow down access to Web sites or
services with
which they have no distribution agreements, said members of consumer groups
and two consumer-focused technology companies.
The concept of net neutrality was endorsed by Michael Powell, then chairman
of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in February 2004, and
consumer
advocates had been pushing the idea even before then. Although the FCC
didn't formalize Powell's ideas into rules, the former chairman suggested
that Internet
users had the freedom to access content of their choice, attach devices of
their choice, and run applications of their choice.
But two recent decisions, one by the FCC and one by the U.S. Supreme Court,
raise questions about the consumer rights Powell advocated, said
participants in the
Friday forum. In June, the court ruled that cable companies offering
broadband access do not have to open their high-speed lines to competitors,
and in August,
the FCC followed suit by ruling that DSL (digital subscriber line)
providers no longer have to share their networks with competitors.
The two rulings set the stage for closed broadband networks where the
providers set the rules, said speakers at the Friday forum.
Without net neutrality rules, the concept of an open, go-where-you-want
Internet is at risk, said representatives of Vonage Holdings Corp. and TiVO
Inc. "Net
neutrality means the Internet keeps working like the Internet works today,"
said Chris Murray, vice president of government affairs for Vonage, a VOIP
provider.
"It's about a larger issue than how much profit network operators can extract."
Broadband providers have opposed the call for net neutrality provisions in
a new telecom reform package, saying they have no intention of blocking
customer
access to legal content and services. Providers would lose customers if
they blocked customers from going to the Web sites they chose, Verizon and
Comcast
officials have argued in recent months.
The concept of net neutrality is likely to be one of the major debates as
Congress looks to pass telecom reform legislation in 2006.
Telecommunication carriers
and cable operators, on opposite sides in parts of the telecom reform
debate, have both said a net neutrality law would be a "solution in search
of a problem."
"The question becomes, when we start implementing those either as
legislation or enforcement, we start getting into some real trouble," Peter
Davidson, Verizon's
vice president of federal government relations, said during a telecom
reform debate in November. "We start walking down the path of regulating
the Internet real
quickly, if we do it in the wrong way."
A net neutrality law could also limit broadband providers' ability to
protect their networks from hackers or bandwidth hogs, say providers and
their allies.
At the heart of the debate is an important property rights issue, and
broadband network owners should be able to enter into contracts with some
content providers,
said Randy May, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a
conservative think tank. Broadband providers need to have ways to recoup
the cost of
building next-generation networks, he said during another telecom forum
Thursday.
"We're talking about the owners of these networks in a competitive
environment," May said. "In my view, it's important not to dictate to the
owners of the
networks that they cannot provide any kind of preference to those people
who they want to enter into relationships with."
So far, the net neutrality debate hasn't focused on making Internet users
to pay per Web site visit, but that possibility did come up during Friday's
forum. Some
members of the Electronic Retailing Association don't understand why a net
neutrality is needed when they're used to paying to advertise products on
cable
television, said Barbara Tulipane, the group's president and chief
executive officer.
Some people have questioned why Vonage should make money by riding free on
a broadband network, Tulipane noted. AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Officer
Edward Whitacre,
quoted by BusinessWeek recently, complained about potential competition
from Vonage and other Internet companies, saying he wasn't going to let
them "use my
pipes free."
But the Internet is about more than just shopping, and the closed cable TV
model could lead to per-Web site charges, Vonage's Murray told Tulipane.
"That's not
the Internet, and it's not what consumers expect," he said.
Despite broadband providers' assurances that they don't plan to block
content, panelists said they've already seen it happen. Three small
providers have tried to
block Vonage VOIP service, Murray said, and in the early days of cable
modem service, some cable television companies wrote clauses in their
customer contracts
allowing them to limit access to competing video services.
The market for innovative new Internet applications could dry up if
broadband providers can block competing services, panelists said. An
Internet where broadband
providers limit access to content would be "bad for our economy and our
democracy," said Gigi Sohn, president and cofounder of Public Knowledge, a
consumer
advocacy group focused on technology issues.
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