Squabble builds over Internet service providers' power to block access

Jonathan Krim from The Washington Post writes (via DetNews.com):

A couple of years ago, a group of big technology companies got together and issued a public alarm about the future of the Internet:

Those who own the wires that get us online, the companies said, should not be able to pick and choose what Web content and services we can see and use.

Just as electric companies can't cut deals with electronics makers to allow only some products to work, the Internet should have similar, guaranteed "network neutrality," argued tech firms such as Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.

The telephone and cable companies that provide most Internet access dismissed the warning as a pro-regulatory, paranoid rant. It was a solution in search of a problem, they said, and they vowed they would never, ever do such a thing. And the issue receded.

I don't care that they say "They wouldn't do it". Who's to say that they won't change their minds? What if a new CEO comes in that hates CNN and you'll never be able to see it again? How about HGTV, or Disney? Just because someone say they won't do it doesn't mean it shouldn't be illegal.

But now it's back in a big way, and the question is: How will the tech industry respond?

Consider:

• ---On March 3, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it settled a case against a small North Carolina-based telephone company that was blocking the ability of its customers to use voice-over-Internet calling services instead of regular phone lines.
  

• ---On Sept. 15, the first major draft of proposed changes in the nation's telecommunication's laws was circulated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The draft said Internet service providers must not "block, impair, interfere with the offering of, access to, or the use of such content, applications or services."

• ----On Nov. 2, another draft of the bill came out, with language specifically addressing the Internet video services that are proliferating as connection speeds increase and the phone companies get into the digital television business. In this draft, the prohibition on blocking or impeding content was gone.

We the consumer, are about to be screwed again. Laws such as these do not help citizens. They help a much more important population than us, Corporations. Giving Corporations the ability to block what does not make them money is monopolizing and profiteering.

If the bill passes as is, tech companies say, the Internet could be forever compromised.

"Enshrining a rule that broadly permits network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of services and to potentially interfere with others would place broadband operators in control of online activity," Vinton Cerf, a founding father of the Internet who now works for Google Inc., wrote in a letter to Congress.

The phone companies argue that with their new fiber-optic systems capable of handling huge amounts of bandwidth, they simply want the ability to set aside some of it for their own services, be it television, gaming or anything else.

Unfortunately for them, the head of phone giant SBC Communications Inc., Edward E. Whitacre Jr., was a little more plain-spoken in an interview in Business Week.

"Now what they (Google, Yahoo, MSN) 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," Whitacre said. "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."

Translation: You the consumer are going to be required to pay to access Google or Yahoo! through SBC's networks. Above paying for regular access.

Contact your Government Repersentative. We need laws like this struck down or modified to keep the internet free for everybody, not just SBC.
Click here for House
Click here for Senate

Squabble builds over Internet service providers' power to block access