[OPLINLIST] Access to the Internet: Is it a right or a privilege?

[Kent Oliver]

This is a good article on Net neutrality for anyone trying to get a
handle on the issue.
Kent 

Kent Oliver, Executive Director
Stark County District Library
715 Market Ave., N., Canton, OH 44702
W: 330 458 2710 FAX: 330 455 9596
KOliver at starklibrary.org
"The America I loved still exists in the front desks of public
libraries."  Kurt Vonnegut






Subject: [IFCFCC:570] Access to the Internet: Is it a right or a
privilege?


The full article, with any associated images and links can be viewed
here.

Access to the Internet: Is it a right or a privilege?
John Reinan, Star Tribune

The full article, with any associated images and links can be viewed
here:
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/458590.html 

Imagine if the Internet were like cable TV.

You pay $40 a month to Time Warner or Comcast, and you get a menu of 80
websites to visit. 

Want to go to a site devoted to Japanese anime cartoons? Sorry, that's
not on the menu. Looking for that crazy blog about the history of
matchbook covers? No longer available -- or so slow to load it's not
worth your while.

That scenario could become real, some Internet mavens say, unless
Congress acts quickly to preserve freedom of the Web. A recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision has opened the door to greater corporate control
of the Internet, and big business is ready to walk through it.

"The small guy is not going to be able to get his word out," said Elliot
Cohen, a Florida-based media scholar and author. "If these companies get
their way, content providers with deep pockets will get optimum
bandwidth, and the rest of us will be spinning slowly in cyberspace.

"The greatest democratic forum that was ever devised by humanity will go
by the wayside."

But broadband Internet providers say they don't want to restrict access
to the Web -- they want to offer consumers more choices.

More video, faster online games, home teleconferencing -- all would be
possible if broadband providers could charge different rates for
different Internet services, they say. The debate is over "net
neutrality." It's the subject of at least four proposed laws in
Congress.

Net neutrality means that everyone who hooks up to the Internet is
treated equally. The website for the Phillips Neighborhood Network in
Minneapolis gets its traffic routed as efficiently as CNN.com.

But net neutrality is also about who pays for the Internet. Cable and
phone companies, which provide the network for broadband Internet
traffic, have watched Google, Yahoo and other Web businesses get rich
using their "pipes."

The cable and phone companies think they should get a bigger piece of
the Internet pie. Rather than just collect monthly fees from
subscribers, broadband providers want businesses that use the Web to pay
them higher rates for premium services, such as faster connections and
higher levels of security.

They also want the ability to steer their broadband customers to those
premium sites. In theory, broadband providers could even block access to
websites that refused to pay extra fees, although one major provider --
AT&T -- has pledged not to do that.

Advocates of net neutrality argue that the Internet is a quasi-public
service, like the electric grid or the telephone lines. Giving preferred
treatment to certain websites, they say, would be akin to the telephone
company offering better phone connections to whichever florist or car
dealer paid it the most money.

Partisans on both sides say the future of the Internet rides on how
lawmakers settle the issue.

"Our goal is to ensure that the Internet is an open system for anyone,
anywhere to use," U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said in an interview.
"We're very concerned about big companies acting as gatekeepers,
charging tolls. We think that will ruin the Internet."

Dorgan is co-author of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which
would prohibit broadband Internet service providers from "blocking,
degrading or prioritizing service on their networks."

Broadband providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon say that without
extra fees from preferred customers, they won't have money to upgrade
their networks and invest in new technology.

AT&T, Verizon and Comcast declined interviews.

"Net neutrality proponents would actually limit choices and options for
Internet users," Ed Whitacre, chief executive officer of AT&T, said in a
statement. "They say it is unfair for Internet users and content
providers to pay different prices for different levels of speed,
reliability and security.

"It's like saying we should add no more lanes to a highway that is
increasingly congested."

No longer a common carrier

Ever since the Internet began some 30 years ago as a way of letting
computers talk to one another, net neutrality has been a key principle.
Internet service providers were considered common carriers, meaning they
had to route all traffic, regardless of destination.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Internet was more like
cable TV: a one-way transmitter of information. Just as cable companies
choose what programs they offer on their channels, broadband providers
would be allowed to choose what Web content they transmit.

Ralph Jenson, a Woodbury technology consultant, was a founder of
Gofast.net, one of the first Internet service providers in the Twin
Cities. The broadband companies, he said, are losing sight of why the
Internet was created.

"It wasn't just for them to connect to their customers," Jenson said.
"It was for everybody to connect to everybody else. A guy who sets up a
new site and it gets hot, they're going to come to him and ask for more
money, and he's going to have to shut down. And there goes innovation."

Those on the other side point out that there are already different
service tiers and financial deals on the Internet. Some customers pay
less for slow dial-up connections, while others pay more for faster
broadband service.

And Google, a loud proponent of net neutrality, gives priority in its
search listings to companies that pay to be at the top of the list.

"The common carrier is a model for 1910, not 2010," said Douglas
Holtz-Eakin, an economic fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in
Washington, D.C. "You charge people based on what they use.

"My take on the really big stakes here is, who will build the Internet
capacity of the future? And the sad truth is that no one is going to do
that unless they have the money, through pricing, to put it in."

Dorgan said freedom of the Web is an important tool of democracy.

"The Internet is changing the way we communicate and the way ideas are
exchanged and considered," he said. "We can't have the Internet become a
proprietary playground."

John Reinan 612-673-7402