More On Net Neutrality

TMCNet reports that reps from Vonage, Google, Yahoo, e-Bay and Amazon are expected to attend a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill today to express their opposition to a controversial telecommunications bill addressing “net neutrality.”

Here are some excerpts:

The Internet service and content providers assert that the House Committee’s Communications, Promotion, and Enhancement Act, which was unveiled on Monday, doesn’t go far enough to preserve “net neutrality” – the concept that everyone, everywhere, should have free and unfettered access to all that the Internet has to offer, and that network operators should be prohibited from blocking or degrading competitors’ traffic as it traverses their networks.

The draft bill (it hasn’t yet been assigned a number), which was written by Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas), essentially bars the government from regulating phone and cable companies with regard to how content and services are delivered over the Internet. The bill – which is essentially a “grab bag” of telecommunications legislation – would give the Federal Communications Commission the power to resolve cases of alleged “discrimination” with regard to the delivery of content and services on a case-by-case basis, yet it does not put forward any specific rules about Web access.

Congress has been grappling with the net neutrality issue for more than a year, as it prepares to enact legislation to replace the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which is now largely obsolete due to dramatic changes in the telecommunications industry during the past decade (in particular, the migration of voice and video signals to the Internet). The net neutrality debate heated up this past fall when Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, made some controversial comments regarding the delivery of competitors’ content and services over AT&T’s network.

“Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?” Whitacre said in an article which appeared on Business Week Online in November. “The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment - and for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes (for) free is nuts!”
Following the publication of Whitacre’s comments, the major U.S. carriers, including AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, began lobbying both the House and Senate in an effort to push through legislation allowing them to establish separate “tiers” of service on the Internet. These tiers would be used for the express delivery of voice and video services, as well as content, however, the carriers want to be able to charge for access to these tiers. Service and content providers which sign up to use the carriers’ “fast lane” would receive guarantees for “prioritized” delivery of their data – which would have the effect of freeing up the rest of the Internet for other, less intensive, content and services. The big carriers argue that they should be able to collect access fees so as to off-set the cost of network upgrades which will be necessary in order to facilitate the delivery of next-generation services.
However, the proposal to allow paid tiers of service has turned out to be extremely controversial. Google, Yahoo, Vonage and other content and service providers, which are “pro-net neutrality,” claim that allowing the big carriers to establish paid tiers of service could lead to various forms of “discrimination” - such as network operators blocking or degrading competitors’ signals - or, at the very least, giving their own signals priority over those of others.

Opponents have also pointed out that a “tiered” Internet could skew competition in favor of the big carriers. Smaller Internet content and service providers might not be able to afford the access fees for faster service, thus putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

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