Save the Internet
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT “NET NEUTRALITY”

What do you get when you cross the Christian Coalition and pro-gun advocates with MoveOn.org and the Feminist Majority? If you guessed a brawl of epic proportions, you’d be wrong. These groups, and others from across the political spectrum, are actually working together towards a common goal: saving the Internet as we know it.

The enemies these strange bedfellows have allied themselves against are the telecommunications mega-corporations. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and other Internet service providers (ISP) are demanding the ability to have more control over the information flowing from a content provider — such as Amazon or Google — to personal computers screens across America. In essence, these companies want to scrap what has become known as “net neutrality,” which some refer to as the “first amendment of the Internet.”

RIGGED PLAYING FIELD

The idea of net neutrality holds that once data enters the Internet, it should be treated equally regardless of content. This idea stems from telecommunications policies dating back to the 1930s. “Common Carrier” laws required telephone companies to treat all calls equally, preventing scenarios where a particular company could refuse to carry calls placed by a rival’s customer. This basic principal of neutrality was included in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which ensured the Internet would remain a non-discriminatory system — but this was back in the era of the dial-up modem.

A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision changed everything.

The ruling determined that cable companies offered an information service, not a telephone service. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) followed suit by declaring cable and high-speed DSL access — 98 percent of the broadband market — exempt from the 1996 Teleco Act. Into this regulatory vacuum, jumped the high-priced corporate lobbyists with catchy lingo of deregulation and free-markets. As a result, a far-reaching rewrite of telecommunications guidelines currently weaving through the Senate may ditch network neutrality for good.

The legislation, which the House passed in June after voting down an amendment safe-guarding net neutrality, will create a two-tiered Internet; a rigged playing field where ISPs can designate a “fast-lane” for their own web-content — or those willing to pay top dollar — while everyone else is left in the dust.

This doesn’t bode well for Bob Russell, long-time neutrality advocate and co-founder of the first commercial ISP in Grand Traverse. Today, Russell operates a server that hosts a variety of websites for small-budget organizations, including his nonprofit Neahtawanta Center and Ventingmedia.com — a site featuring streaming videos of local activism.

“This will allow ISPs to discriminate against a packet of data once it gets into the network,” explains Russell. “If a certain packet is considered special because someone paid more, it will go first while everything else falls behind. It will greatly disadvantage small content providers.”

CONTROLLING CONTENT

According to Russell, the recent attempts to alter the net’s basic framework stem from innovations in streaming video broadcasts. As streaming video approaches the quality of television, telecom companies want to reserve high-bandwidth for their own video services in order to compete with cable. However, nothing would stop them from degrading the quality of a competitor’s video service or other web content in conflict with their own interests — especially those unwilling to pay for preferential treatment.

Ed Whitacre, now the CEO of AT&T, already hinted as much in a statement to Business Week last November: “They don’t have any fiber out there. They don’t have any wires. They don’t have anything. For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!”

Hands off the Internet — a telecom advocacy group posing as a grassroots organization — is arguing against net neutrality. The group claims the telecom industry simply wants the Internet to be governed by economics, not government regulation. Russell sees this stance as a front for corporate control of the Internet.

“What these corporations are really saying is ‘hands off our Internet.’ They want to be the only ones regulating things,” says Russell. “There are no ‘free markets.’ All markets are regulated, and net neutrality is not burdensome. Phone companies made plenty of money under common carrier laws, and they’ll make money under net neutrality.”

There are already numerous examples of ISPs degrading content in absence of any firm neutrality guidelines. North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using rival web-based phone services such as Vonage. AOL blocked all emails that mentioned the website of a campaign opposed to its pay-to-send email plan.

DOWN, BUT NOT OUT

It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. The good news is the real grassroots coalition, Save the Internet, is growing stronger everyday. Its members span the political spectrum, and are unrelenting in their pursuit to preserve a free and open Internet. Their website, launched in April, already boasts over a million petition signers and hundreds of groups who are in favor of strict neutrality guidelines.

“All these groups have found such success over the Internet,” comments communications director Craig Aaron. “This type of sharing never existed before, and they understand the ability to quickly inform is a nonpartisan need.”

They have some big guns on their side. Musician Moby has jumped onboard to serve as a spokesperson for neutrality, along with web creators Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee. At a conference in May, Berners-Lee warned the net would enter a “dark period” if ISPs are allowed to prioritize traffic.

Web-based companies such as eBay and Google are joining the fray as well. Meg Whitman, chief eBay executive, emailed over a million members of the online auction service asking for their support of net neutrality, and Eric Schmidt of Google asked his staff to back the concept.

All of this has helped push the debate into the limelight.

“The telecom executives would prefer no one knew about this issue,” says director Aaron. “Media policy is always being set behind closed doors, with public input ignored. We need to change that, and have a real public discussion.”

With media consolidation running rampant and the news as business brand of journalism growing ever more insidious, there’s never been a more important time to preserve the Internet as a democratic information-sharing medium where everyone has equal access — regardless of monetary frontiers.

To join the fight for Internet democracy visit savetheinternet.com

Written By Jason Glover

Back