I received the following letter from my left wing congressional representative today (I’ll let it speak for itself):
August 9, 2006
Dear Mr. Cheesman:
Thank you for writing to me about telecommunications issues. I appreciate hearing your views.
The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE Act, H.R. 5252), was introduced by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) on May 1, 2006. The bill passed the House on June 8, 2006 by a vote of 321-101. I voted in favor of the bill. The Senate is currently debating its own version of a telecom bill. Ultimately, the House and the Senate versions will be reconciled to arrive at a final bill.
H.R. 5252 would act to enable the government via the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate broadband providers. It would also require providers of Internet telephone services to provide links to 9-11 emergency access. A key provision of the bill would prohibit discrimination by providers to communities based on income. This provision would ensure that communities of color, and low income communities will have equal access to broadband services.
The other key provision that I believe will end up benefiting consumers is the subject of your correspondence. “Net neutrality” is the term used by content providers to raise the issue that a revision of the telecom laws will create greater disparities in speed and access to broadband connections. The heart of this complicated issue is who will pay for the development of enhanced broadband capacity.
It is clear to me that if telecom companies (e.g. AT&T, Verizon) were forced to pay for the expansion of broadband capacity, they would pass the cost down to the consumer. Whereas, by requiring content providers (e.g. Google, Yahoo) to pay for the increased capacity, they would offer access to the higher speed broadband at a layered fee system.
A layered fee system would encourage consumer choice. Consumers who desire the increased capacity would pay a fee, while others who only need basic capacity for functions (such as e-mail) could opt not to buy the extra capacity. If net neutrality were in effect, all consumers would end up paying for development of increased capacity, regardless of whether they needed or wanted enhanced services. I strongly support consumer choice because it is better if consumers pay for what they use, not what they don’t use.
To provide an example, let’s look at health care, which is the largest employer in the 11th District. The next generation of broadband will make it possible for health care providers to provide less expensive, but better health care, such as monitoring chronic disease through the Internet. Net neutrality might possibly result in a senior in need of chronic disease monitoring paying as much for their Internet service as a business engaged in highly secure financial transactions. Therefore, although net neutrality might appear to encourage equal access to the Internet, its practical effect would not benefit consumers.
Thank you again for writing to me about these issues. I enjoy hearing from you and I encourage you to contact my office if you have further questions.
Sincerely,
STJ: pw
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Member of Congress
***
Now for the far more entertaining counterpoint, which I share, from rising member of my ‘freebie list‘, Amanda Congdon:
August 10th, 2006 at 12:19 am
When I first heard of this debate I was 100% pro-Net Neutrality. But over the past few months I have softened up quite a bit, in part because the claims of the pro-Neutrality crowd kept getting wilder and wilder.
As I read the law, the non-neutral net would allow telcos to, say, do traffic-shaping with *all* VoIP services, but they could not, say, allow Vonage but squash Skype. This is already covered under the Sherman Act and later legislation covering restraint of commerce, not to mention existing FCC regulation. The cat is already far enough out of the bag in terms of PR that I am not too worried about the telcos censoring Craigslist and such, and it’s not even clear it would be any more or less legal or illegal than it is today.
The real problem here is that even in densely-populated Boston, I have only two choices for high-speed Internet, Slow Expensive Cable, and Slower Cheap DSL. If we did pass some hardcore net-neutrality I could very well see the telcos taking 10+ years to bring a better service to market, and forget about new competition. Non-neutrality would allow, say, Comcast, to lay a fat pipe to my door with the intention to deliver IPTV services, knowing that they can also make anyone else pay in order to use that pipe to deliver a competing IPTV service. This doesn’t exactly strike me as the end of the Net as we know it.
Ultimately Amanda, who is telegenic enough to sell an eskimo a refrigerator, gets one thing right, and that is that there is not enough competition. Ultimately I don’t trust Comcast or the FCC to deliver good services at fair prices, as they are often feeding from the same trough. What we need are more choices. Broadband over power lines looks promising, and WiMax may open a lot of new doors. Consumers will choose “real Internet” if they have the choice. Let the telcos have their say over their networks, but let’s also do all we can to lower the obstacles to putting new networks in place.