A Serious Threat To Internet Freedom
A Serious Threat To Internet Freedom
By Byron Dorgan and Olympia Snowe
Grand Forks Herald
September 6, 2006
Having risen from its humble beginnings as an obscure tool used only by a few tech-savvy enthusiasts, the Internet now represents one of the most revolutionary technological innovations the world has ever seen. What makes it so revolutionary is the fact that it is a medium to which everyone has unfettered access. Big or small, content providers from the largest corporation to a single individual, have equal opportunity to reach millions of Internet users.
When users log onto the Internet, they take a lot of things for granted. They assume that they will be able to access whatever lawful Web site they want, whenever they want. They take for granted that they can use any feature they like, anytime they choose, whether it be watching online videos, listening to podcasts, searching, e-mailing or instant messaging.
What they are assuming is called “Network Neutrality,” the principle that has made the Internet what it is today. The idea is that the Internet should be open and free, and restricted by no one.
That freedom to share ideas and information, without filtering, is what makes the Internet unique. It now is at risk.
Some powerful network operators have suggested they might consider charging content providers fees that will discriminate between providers. Those who pay the fee could get preferential treatment in terms of the way their content is delivered. Those who don’t pay could see their content languish in the backwaters.
The threat is real: “They don’t have any fiber out there. They don’t have any wires. They don’t have anything. . . . They use my lines for free - and that’s bull. For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!”, the CEO of one the nation’s biggest network operators told Business Week magazine in November.
Clearly, if Congress does not act, the age of digital democracy could come to an end. We introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (S.2917) because recent regulatory changes made by the FCC have undone the net neutrality protections that long have been a part of our telecommunications laws. In the months since broadband was fully deregulated, some executives from the largest network operators have publicly announced their interest in charging or providing preferential treatment to certain Internet companies to get to consumers, a change that would do away with the Internet as we know it.
If companies proceed with their plans to set up tollbooths along the information superhighway, every Internet user’s experience will be fundamentally altered, and the entrepreneurship that flourishes on the world’s last remaining frontier will be stifled.
Network operators would have the power to decide which Web pages load faster, what content their customers can access and whose data has the highest priority. They could create a two-tiered system in which wealthy and favored customers would cruise along the superhighway, while less favored users and content providers would be relegated to the Internet’s “dirt road.”
Furthermore, the democratic nature of the Internet could be irretrievably harmed as network operators would have the ability to favor certain speech or ideas over others. The free flow of ideas that has characterized the Internet until now could instead be subject to a veto by those that control the pipes.
Simply put, what has made the Internet such a remarkable success is the ability of consumers everywhere to use the connection for which they pay to experience a world of their own choosing on their own terms. Out of this fertile ground has sprung a vibrant marketplace of innovation, businesses and ideas that benefits all of us. American consumers, entrepreneurs and future generations deserve nothing less.
Sens. Dorgan, D-N.D., and Snowe, R-Maine, are members of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and the authors of legislation to preserve internet neutrality.
on September 11th, 2006 at 7:53 am
On the contrary, I and my coalition feel that legislating the internet is the worst possible solution. The notion that we will have to trust the likes of Senator Stevens who infamously shared his (lack of) understanding of the internet to control and regulate the internet…well frankly it’s frightening.
The internet works so well precisely because it is free. Bucketing the web under the control of the Washington bureaucrats would doom the internet to slow-moving regulation, stalled innovation, and open the door to those in the government who would censor content.
on September 11th, 2006 at 11:44 am
This comment from a representative from the telco astroturf organization, the so-called “Hands Off The Internet”, is the type of disingenuous propaganda that these front groups pretending to be consumer interest associations are pushing. Created by and funded by huge amounts of telco corpoate cash, these groups are trying to convince you to support their taking over control of the flow and access to the content on the internet.
This statement by ‘handsoff’ is specifically written to be confusing to the average reader. For example, they present a host of contradictory statements all in one sentence by stating that “I and my coalition feel that legislating the internet is the worst possible solution. The notion that we will have to trust the likes of Senator Stevens who infamously shared his (lack of) understanding of the internet to control and regulate the internet…well frankly it’s frightening.”
They are right about the frightening nature of Senator Stevens’ legislative agenda and the extent of his ignorance regarding the very issues he wishes to assert his agenda over. Yet what they don’t tell you here is that they are the ones backing Senator Stevens and his legislation to change the rules of who controls the internet and allow for their very companies to monopolize control over content on it! Controlling and regulating the internet is exactly what these telcom corporations want to do, but they want to do it for themselves and for their own private profit. Sen. Stevens is their champion, and their referencing him in a negative light here is to make you the citizen think that they are proponants for the principles that the large majority of Americans support, that the internet to stay the way it is now.
“The internet works so well precisely because it is free.”
Exactly, and if duplicitously named groups like “Hands Off The Internet” get their way, it will no longer work that way. Though perhaps they do want “Hands Off The Internet,” as in ‘hands’ plural, for they’ll want it where there is only a single hand on the internet controlling the ease and availability of access to content, and that would be their monopolistic hand of their telcom corporation.
“Bucketing the web under the control of the Washington bureaucrats would doom the internet to slow-moving regulation, stalled innovation, and open the door to those in the government who would censor content.”
Again, this line is pure rhetorical hot air, meant to trigger response buttons in people to make them to feel one way about an issue, when the actual effect of the new legislation would have the very effect that they are afraid of. Its just that those who would be slowing the internet, stalling innovation and censoring content would be the private, unaccountable and uncontrollable corporations that would claim it for their own personal fiefdoms.
This BS is breathtakingly Orwellian in its scope. It conflates people’s interest in seeing the internet a free and open platform where all content is accessible equally with their efforts to actually change that very dynamic with new laws and policies that will transform it from a ‘pull’ platform to a ‘push’ platform, very much like the way cable tv works now. Websites that don’t pay ‘protection money’ to the phone companies that control the pipes will be marginlized to the slow ‘dirt roads’ of the internet, where companies that these telco corporations either own or have exclusive business contracts with will get favored treatement.
For the real deal on Net Neutrality and keeping the internet a free and open platform, please visit
http://www.savetheinternet.com
http://www.democraticmedia.org
on September 11th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Andy hit the nail on the head. I don’t have much to add to his rebuttal to “handsoff”, other than some real world experience.
I am one of the owners of an independent ISP in Ohio. We have already been affected by the removal, in 2005, of net neutrality provisions from the telecommunications act. Big carriers have already blocked email traffic to our mail servers, and their tech support staff has told our customers that the “problem must be with their ISP” (not true). The actions of these carriers has created a tech support nightmare for us, and has already cost us customers. We’ve also been informed by the ILEC in our territory that they will not offer us the ability to resell Internet access services that our customers are craving, and for which there is a real demand (”unbundled loops” — broadband services that don’t require local dialtone, saving customers lots of money).
Our company pays over $10,000 each month for bandwidth to our upstream providers. We do more than $600,000 worth of business with AT&T every year, buying bandwidth, T-1s, and DSL circuits on behalf of our customers. It’s absolutely disingenuous for Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, to claim that anyone is riding his network for free. If we should have been riding it for free, I want a refund for the last eleven years.
Without network neutrality, the companies that provide the real innovation on the edge will be unable to compete. This is *exactly* what the big carriers want — the U.S. government’s help in eliminating the competition by removing network neutrality protections that were put in place long ago, in exchange for the telecos’ free access to our public rights of way.
The carriers can’t have it both ways. Either they start paying appropriate rent for the rights of way, or they make their copper and fiber going through our public commons accessible to all at a competitive rate.
on September 12th, 2006 at 9:17 am
The Anchorage Daily News weighs anchor on the Stevens Telecom Bill here. This is good synopsis of the issue of Net Neutrality and the common sense reasons for preserving these provisions in telecom law.
http://cabletv.com/national/726-anchorage-daily-news-drops-anchor.html