Keeping the Net Neutral Creates The Strangest of Allies
Net neutrality is the concept that all internet content should be treated equally by broadband providers without any kind of discrimination. It has become a hot political topic this year, especially in the US, amid fears that telcos may start blocking some websites or charge users extra to access them.
It boils down to a historic fight between the big business interests that today control the Internet pipelines running into 98 percent of the homes in America - Verizon, BellSouth, Time Warner, SBC, Comcast and AT&T - and people like Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man regarded by most as the inventor of the Web. But Berners-Lee is not alone. In addition to enjoying the support of the majority of Internet users, Net neutrality now also claims the support of the House Judiciary Committee. The bipartisan Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 passed the committee by a 20-13 vote last week. The Committee’s Republican chairman, James Sensenbrenner, along with several other Republicans and the majority of Democrats voted in favor of the bill. The bill would prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against any Web site or online service. A similar bill introduced in the Senate last week, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, also has bipartisan support.
"It's better and more efficient for us all if we have a separate market where we get our connectivity," says Bernerd-Lee, "and a separate market where we get our content. Information is what I use to make all my decisions. Not just what to buy but how to vote. There is an effort by some companies in the US to change this. There's an attempt to get to a situation where if I want to watch a TV station across the internet, that TV station must have paid to transmit to me."
But what's in it for Verizon, SBC, Comcast and the other opponents of Net neutrality? Why are they willing to risk the public ire? The answer is simple: money. They fear they're losing ground in their other businesses. Internet phone services like Vonage and Skype offer cheap local and long distance calling over the Internet, stealing revenue from phone companies, and once Internet TV gains a mass audience, cable TV companies like Comcast will find themselves in deep trouble. Suddenly there's real competition in voice and video services, and that's bad news for companies like Verizon and Time Warner as well. The new breed of Internet phones sold by Vonage resemble traditional telephones, which has accelerated their adoption nationwide.
But not all big US businesses are against Net neutrality. Opposing the telco and cable companies are the mightly content providers, the businesses that store and organize the data we want, companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!. They have been lobbying US politicians to introduce laws that would make Net neutrality mandatory. These moves have been opposed by broadband providers and some hardware manufacturers. Money versus money, much of it thrown around Washington to sway Congress.
One half of the money versus money Net neutrality battle has a little something extra on its side: God. The president of the Christian Coalition of America is asking Congress to preserve net neutrality. Roberta Combs says Rep. Sensenbrenner and others in Congress have stood up for continued freedom on the Internet.
"We urge Congress to move aggressively to save the Internet and allow ideas rather than money to control what Americans can access on the Worldwide Web," she says. Congress, says the Christian Coalition, must make sure the Internet remains accessible to all Americans, rich or poor.
Ironically, the U.S. House of Representatives is also considering a bill that would allow broadband network operators to offer streamlined access to websites that pay them extra for a higher level of service, the complete antithesis of Net neutrality. Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), says such an arrangement would put many nonprofit radio stations at a disadvantage.
"The telephone companies and cable companies that control access to the Internet are talking about creating kind of a better level of service for those who are willing to pay for it," Wright explains, "and everyone else sort of gets what's left over."
To get their hands on more of the money from Internet long distance phone calling and broadband Internet television and video, the telcos and cable companies have come up with a "tiered" system for the Internet similar to that of cable TV, and, rest assured, it won't cost you less money than you're paying now. The telcos and cable companies would charge not only their subscribers but also the content providers themselves - Google, Yahoo!, iTunes, and every other site that could afford it. Those added costs would eventually, as they always do, trickle down to the consumer.
The telcos and cable companies use the rationalle that they need a tiered system because we regular folks out on the Information Superduperhighway are using up all the bandwidth with our video clips, mp3s and big downloads. We're so rude!
It is comforting to see that most representatives of the people are willing to think of the common internet user on issues like this. If startup companies are to offer innovative and competitively priced services over the web, they must be given the freedom to do so without paying bribes to a demanding and self-centered authority.
- May 31, 2006
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