Net Neutrality
We've gotten awfully used to the Internet in its current incarnation--open access at a low price or no price, depending on how you get your access. Anybody can put up a Webpage about almost anything (like this one, for example). But there's certainly no guarantee it'll stay this way. I wrote about this a couple of months ago, but there's been a new flurry of activity. Yesterday, The Agonist handed over some of its currently free space to Rep. Ed Markey, who's spearheading efforts to block anti-access Internet legislation that's currently threading its way through Congress. (Here's a PDF of the legislation, as well as a link to recent House hearings.) This is some of what Markey had to say:
U.S. global leadership in high technology stems directly from a policy of open networks, where the owner of the telephone wire into your home or business has to be nondiscriminatory, or "neutral," with respect to how it treats traffic that flows over its network. For decades, this policy has kept telecommunications networks open to all lawful uses and users, leading to a low barrier to entry for web-based content, applications, and services. The result has been remarkable innovation, economic growth, job creation, and the flourishing of remarkable new forums for discussion - such as this one - that transcend all geographic boundaries.
The Barton bill puts all of this at risk, and heightens the need for legally enforceable, so-called "network neutrality" rules. At its core, the term "network neutrality" ensures that a broadband network operator does not block, impair, or degrade a consumer's ability to access any lawful Internet content, application, or service. It means being able to attach any device for use with your broadband connection, as long as it otherwise doesn't damage service to other users. And it means nondiscriminatory treatment of communications traffic so that phone or cable companies cannot favor themselves or affiliated parties to the detriment of competitors, innovators, and independent entrepreneurs. Finally, net neutrality means that the phone companies should not be allowed to charge extra fees and warp the web into a multi-tiered network of bandwidth-haves and have-nots.
Markey points us to a section of his own House Website on net neutrality to keep up with developments on the issue in general. I first saw this when I followed a link from Matt at MyDD, who's also got a few points to make on the topic. He also recommends Public Knowledge's policy blog for more information.
posted by Doug @ 10:23 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The idea of keeping the government out of the Internet and leaving it to the free market may be all well and good, but legislation has already been introduced in Congress, so it's a bit of a moot point. The big uestion at this point is whether Internet access should be protected for entrpreneurs or allowed to be overtaken by gatekeepers. Do we want it to resemble a Monopoly board at the beginning of the game when everybody has a chance or at the end when one player has run everybody off the board?
I'd be happy to leave everything the way it is now, as oldhats suggests, and I take no issue with avoiding legislation to prevent something that probably won't happen. Unfortunately, we've already passed that point. Legislation has already been introduced that opens the door to what oldhats called cheating. The telecommunications industry has already stated that it fully intends to take advantage of these rules changes to act as gatekeepers for information. Ed Markey's "Net Neutrality" ammendment was defeated in committee. There are still a number of additional steps the legislation that will allow cheating must take before it becomes law, but "Let's leave everything the way it is now" is no longer on the table.
That's a fair point. The introduction of legislation is no guarantee that it will pass. The Senate has been making noises that it doesn't want to add new regulation, so even if the Barton bill passes the House, it's still not a sure thing to become law.
I'm still concerned, though, about what--if any--response we should have when the phone and cable companies start charging for a tiered system of Internet access. The Internet market is not free enough that I can vote with my dollar, turn my back on them, and take my business elsewhere. Just like cable TV, we have few (or no) other options, and if they jack up their prices, we'll just have to smile and accept it if we still want to surf to the sites of our choice.
I couldn't find Kowal's actual statement (although I did find other references to it), so I don't know precisely what he meant. Sure, most of us have plenty of ISPs from which to choose, but all of them use the same limited routes of access to bring us their service (what AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre refers to as the "pipes"). Internet can come into my home by the phone or cable line, so the phone and cable companies have the potential to exert control and change the rules to suit them. Wireless service is expanding, but that's still pretty much controlled by the phone companies. The real issue will not come down to which ISP we want to use but how we'll have to access them.
The problem is in the process of arising. AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre, who I referred to above, has already spelled out the intentions of his company in an interview last year with Business Week:
"Now what [Internet content providers] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
Do we have to wait until the telecom and cable companies actually start charging and undermining net neutrality before we acknowledge it's a problem?
In terms of political philosophy, I don't have a problem with Congress stepping in. Although I'm not naive enough to think this is always the way things work, we do live in a representative democracy, and Congress is there to represent the rest of us. We shouldn't be afraid of what they might do--they're answerable to us, and if they start acting in ways we don't like, it's up to us to hold them accountable. We haven't done a very good job of that lately, I'll admit, but that's no reason to give up on the process entirely.
Although, the more I think about it, the more I realize I also want Congress to step in to establish net neutrality policies to prevent them from caving to big business later and letting the telecom and cable companies carve up the Internet as they see fit.
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