Groups protest lack of Net neutrality in new bill

IDG News Service - A new telecommunications reform bill in the U.S. Congress would kill the Internet because it does not protect users against decisions by broadband providers to discriminate against some types of Internet traffic, consumer advocacy groups said today.

The draft bill, released late yesterday by the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, would gut so-called Net neutrality rules prohibiting large broadband providers from blocking or slowing access to Web content and services from competitors, the advocates said. The House committee included Net neutrality provisions in earlier drafts.

"This really is a gigantic step backwards and, if enacted, would lead to the death of the Internet," said Earl Comstock, president and CEO of Comptel, a trade group representing small telecom carriers.

The bill would give large Digital Subscriber Line and cable-modem providers "a blank check" to freeze out companies that provide competing Web content and services such as voice over IP, Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America, said during a news conference.

DSL providers AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. praised the bill, released by committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.). Neither company addressed the Net neutrality issue in statements they released, instead focusing on provisions that would streamline the franchising process for new video carriers to compete with cable television. Both AT&T and Verizon are rolling out IPTV services that deliver cablelike programming over the Internet.

Barton defended the bill in a statement, saying it will produce an "explosion of opportunity" with video services "that were unimagined just a few years ago." Current telecom law does not reflect the "technological and competitive reality" of video, he said.

Consumer groups and companies such as Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have called for a Net neutrality law in recent years, with efforts accelerating after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in August ruled that DSL providers don't have to share their networks with competitors (see "FCC removes DSL network-sharing rules").

Cable-modem service providers have long been exempt from sharing their networks, and Net neutrality advocates say large broadband providers now have little incentive to provide competitors with the same level of service they provide to their own or their partners' products.

AT&T and Verizon have said they have no intention of blocking or slowing access to some Web products, because preferential treatment could annoy customers.

The new draft bill eliminates old language prohibiting broadband providers from blocking or impairing access to Web content, services and devices. It gives the FCC power to investigate complaints of violations of its own Net neutrality policy statement, saying consumers are "entitled" to view the Web content, run Web applications and attach network devices. The bill also prohibits the FCC from creating new Net neutrality rules.

Those rules give the FCC little power to stop broadband providers from discriminating against Web content and applications, said eight advocacy groups, including Public Knowledge, Internet2 and Free Press.

"This legislation ties the FCC's hands, thereby undermining the promise of the Internet as a vehicle for innovation and democratic networks," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit law firm working for free expression online.