Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “net neutrality,” or more likely, you haven’t. But if you care about the way the Internet operates — or, for that matter, if you just like to visit websites — it’s an issue that warrants your attention.
The Center for American Progress published a helpful guide to the issue a couple of weeks ago.
Telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T want to build high-speed networks to provide video and Internet services in competition with cable companies. Will these networks be broadly available and foster technological innovation? Or will they simply benefit certain moneyed interests? The answer — and, ultimately, the future of the Internet — depends on the telecommunications bill currently winding its way through Congress. Consumer advocates and progressives like Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) are pushing for the telecom networks, which will be built using public rights-of-way, to provide universal, non-discriminatory access. The telecommunications companies (along with the cable giants) want to reserve the right to give preferential access to whomever has the most cash. Thus far, unfortunately, the industry is winning.
WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?: Markey and others are pushing for the telecommunications bill to require “net neutrality.” The telephone network already operates on this principle. Anyone willing to pay a reasonable fee can get his or her own phone line. Once you get a phone line, it works just as well as Paris Hilton’s phone line or any other phone line. Also, it doesn’t matter whether you’re calling Brad Pitt or your grandmother, the connection works the same. (This is the way networks run naturally. Data is data. It doesn’t matter who sends it.) Open, non-discriminatory access to the phone networks means businesses compete on the basis of what they do with the telephone network, not whether they can afford preferential access to it. The telecoms want to reserve the right to sell privileged access to their high-speed networks. (Edward Whiteacre, the CEO of SBC Communications put it this way: “Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that.”) So, for example, Amazon.com could pay the telecoms a premium and ensure that its site loads much faster than an independent bookstore’s site. The end result could be a two-tiered Internet, where your success doesn’t depend on innovative ideas but rather the ability to pay, thus stifling small businesses that could become the next Microsoft or Google.
It sounds bad. It is bad. As Digby put it, “This isn’t some arcane technological issue. It affects all of us who surf the internet. It means that the network providers will be able to make deals with certain companies to degrade or cut off your access to its competitors to give you an incentive to use their service.”
For more, be sure to check out Matt Stoller’s post on the subject, Save the Internet.com, and this video which helps further explain the issue. It’s a very big deal.