Net Neutrality Advocates are 'Antiproperty,' Critic Says
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The debate heats with some tech companies pushing Congress and the FCC to restrict spectrum use in latest auction.
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Two lawmakers have introduced legislation that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing Web content from competitors.Reps. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Chip Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act Wednesday. The bill says it is U.S. policy to &quot;guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degredation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet.&quot;The bill would also require the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open a proceeding on broadband services and consumer rights. The FCC would be required to investigate whether broadband providers have adhered to its August 2005 policy that providers should refrain from blocking or interfering with Web content.&quot;The open architecture nature of the Internet ... has ensured the Internet&#39;s place as the greatest level playing field ever created,&quot; Markey said as he introduced the bill. &quot;The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high-tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered. [The bill] is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers.&quot;A group of advocacy groups, as well as Google and Amazon.com, praised the bill, saying it is needed as recent news report have suggested Comcast is slowing its customer access to high-bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent. Comcast on Tuesday filed a document with the FCC defending&#160;its practice of engaging in &quot;network management.&quot;Petitions by advocacy group Free Press and online video distributor Vuze to have the FCC prohibit Comcast&#39;s traffic throttling &quot;raise important issues about the ability of broadband network operators to engage in reasonable network management to ensure that their customers can enjoy a positive broadband experience,&quot; Comcast said in its FCC filing. &quot;Network management is best left to the sound, good-faith judgment of the engineers and proprietors who run and own the networks and who are best able to remedy customer service issues promptly, rather than to regulation.&quot;The FCC has no prohibitions against Comcast&#39;s behavior, the company argued. &quot;Free Press mistakenly relies on the [2005 FCC] Internet Policy Statement as creating rules the commission can enforce,&quot; Comcast said.But representatives of the Open Internet Coalition, including Free Press and Public Knowledge, praised the new Markey legislation, saying it would remove doubt about U.S. policy on blocking or slowing Web content.In the last six months, Comcast and other broadband and mobile-phone providers have repeatedly tried to block content on their networks, said Markham Erickson, the Open Internet Coalition&#39;s executive director. Erickson called Comcast&#39;s Tuesday FCC filing &quot;remarkable.&quot;&quot;It appears to declare war on Internet users, policy makers, and even the FCC,&quot; he said. &quot;It essentially says that the FCC has no legal ability to protect consumers from discriminatory behavior.&quot;The Comcast filing called Free Press&#39; complaints about its network management &quot;inflammatory hyperbole.&quot; Asked about Erickson&#39;s comments on the filing, Comcast spokeswoman Sean Fitzmaurice denied that the company was saying the FCC had no authority to regulate net neutrality.The Markey bill is not as specific as past net neutrality bills that failed in a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006, but it would set a standard in federal law, said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. &quot;It&#39;s the right bill at the right time,&quot; she said.Without prohibitions against blocking or slowing Web content, broadband providers could sign deals with some content providers and shut out new Internet-based companies, added Richard Whitt, Google&#39;s Washington telecom and media counsel.&quot;Keeping the on-ramps to the Web free of undue discrimination is not about Google, it&#39;s about the next Google,&quot; Whitt said.Comcast declined to comment on the Markey bill. But Hands Off the Internet, an advocacy group with members including broadband providers AT&amp;T and Qwest, said it could support an FCC study of net neutrality.&quot;There&#39;s no question that a reasoned examination of the facts will demonstrate the folly of net neutrality,&quot; the group said in a statement, &quot;However, we are concerned that an effort to seek public input is intended to be a stalking horse for federal Internet regulation. The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband.&quot;
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Hundreds of groups and individual Internet users sounded off to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality in comments filed Monday, the deadline for responding to the agency&#39;s inquiry into the proposed regulation.
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When it comes to net neutrality, telecom and Internet companies may be asking for it.
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Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, advocated that the U.S. Congress protect net neutrality and questioned the value of DRM (digital rights management) Thursday.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking the middle ground in the net neutrality debate.
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Antitrust authorities at the Justice  Department on Thursday warned regulators against imposing  &quot;network neutrality&quot; regulations that would bar broadband  Internet service companies from charging extra to some content  providers.
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Internet decisions aren't always made at Internet speeds.
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Despite our best efforts to unearth tech-inclined voters, Net neutrality doesn't ring a bell with most residents we interviewed in the Granite State.
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Antitrust authorities at the U.S.  Justice Department on Thursday warned regulators against  imposing &quot;network neutrality&quot; regulations that would bar  broadband Internet service companies from charging extra to  some content providers.
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Columnist Craig J. Mathias weighs in on the debate over Net neutrality and how it applies to the wireless world.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking the middle ground in the net neutrality debate that pits large telecommunications operators against Internet giants.
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Asian regulators should think twice about followingÂ the U.S. lead on net neutrality, or risk undermining the economic incentive for Asian carriers to build and maintain faster networks, according to speakers at the CommunicAsia Summit in Singapore.
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The National Association of Realtors is still talking out of both sides of its mouth.
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"Net neutrality" is a technical concept that has protected online freedom. It's essentially the First Amendment for the Internet - allowing Web users to go where they want and do what they please online.
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RESTON, Va., Sept. 14  /PRNewswire/ -- Debate over whether to regulate Internet Service Providers has raged during consideration of so-called "net neutrality" (NN) legislation now pending in Congress.
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Verizon Wireless' objections to rules requiring soon-to-be-auctioned wireless spectrum to be open to all mobile devices are anti-consumer, Google says.