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May 8, 2006 :: Volume 2, Issue 4
Next Issue: May 2007

The End of the Internet as We Know It?

Posted by TimSlavin at May 8, 2006

"Telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T want to build high-speed networks to provide video and Internet services in competition with cable companies. Will these networks be broadly available and foster technological innovation? Or will they simply benefit certain moneyed interests? The answer -- and, ultimately, the future of the Internet -- depends on the telecommunications bill currently winding its way through Congress. Consumer advocates and progressives like Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) are pushing for the telecom networks, which will be built using public rights-of-way, to provide universal, non-discriminatory access. The telecommunications companies (along with the cable giants) want to reserve the right to give preferential access to whomever has the most cash. Thus far, unfortunately, the industry is winning.

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?: Markey and others are pushing for the telecommunications bill to require "net neutrality." The telephone network already operates on this principle. Anyone willing to pay a reasonable fee can get his or her own phone line. Once you get a phone line, it works just as well as Paris Hilton's phone line or any other phone line. Also, it doesn't matter whether you're calling Brad Pitt or your grandmother, the connection works the same. (This is the way networks run naturally. Data is data. It doesn't matter who sends it.) Open, non-discriminatory access to the phone networks means businesses compete on the basis of what they do with the telephone network, not whether they can afford preferential access to it. The telecoms want to reserve the right to sell privileged access to their high-speed networks. (Edward Whiteacre, the CEO of SBC Communications put it this way: "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that.") So, for example, Amazon.com could pay the telecoms a premium and ensure that its site loads much faster than an independent bookstore's site. The end result could be a two-tiered Internet, where your success doesn't depend on innovative ideas but rather the ability to pay, thus stifling small businesses that could become the next Microsoft or Google."

This compilation piece from American Progress, a liberal US advocacy group, provides a great overview of the key issues at stake. Another article from the Boston Globe provides the telecom perspective with some nods to the larger issues.

If you're interested in this issue, also be sure to visit Save the Internet, an organization that describes the issue in terms most people understand (one good example, "Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.").

Probably this is the biggest issue that will affect the internet in the next 5-10 years. Unfortunately, the hundreds of millions of internet users worldwide have no idea this issue is up for debate. It's basically the wealthy telecom companies and their allies in the U.S. Congress against a few people who realize the larger issues at stake. There clearly is a business issue to be resolved. The telecoms are right in that regard. But totally scrapping the current neutrality of the internet should be a non-starter when discussing solutions. Sadly it is not. Money apparently talks louder.

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