Fight brewing in Congress over net neutrality

IDG News Service - Someday soon, your broadband provider may allow you to get faster results on one search engine, while your favorite search site is slower.

A handful of large broadband providers control the pipes into most U.S. residents' homes, and they now want to control the content flowing over those pipes, consumer advocates complain. And how much control large broadband providers such as AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp. and Comcast Corp. have over the Web sites and applications customers use on their broadband networks is at the heart of a debate heating up in the U.S. Congress this year.

A concept called net neutrality -- that Internet users should have the right to go to any legal Web site, run any legal Web application and attach any legal device to the network -- has been around for years. Former U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell called for four Internet freedoms enveloping net neutrality in February 2004.

But only in last half year have backers of net neutrality -- including Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- pushed to have those ideas written into law. Since late last year, Congress has looked at ways to update its 10-year-old telecommunications regulations to address broadband and related services such as VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol).

Some Republicans in Congress have expressed doubts about a net neutrality law, saying it would be the first step toward regulating the wide, open Internet. Such a law could also discourage broadband providers from improving their networks, said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican.

"I'm ¿ very concerned that we not put a chill on the investment that's required for the rollout of broadband services," he said at a recent net neutrality forum.

As part of telecom reform, AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. are pushing a stripped-down video franchising process that would allow them to quickly expand their broadband video services in competition with cable television providers. AT&T and BellSouth have proposed a high-speed broadband video network separate from the public Internet, guaranteeing its own video service a level of quality that's not available on the regular Internet.

Net neutrality backers object, saying broadband providers want to move away from the open Internet and create an Internet fast lane for their own services, or for affiliated services, and a slow lane for everyone else. VOIP provider Vonage Holdings Corp. already points to a handful of cases where broadband providers have tried to block or slow its service.

Small, innovative companies won't be able to compete in a pay-for-performance Internet,