http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012100094.html
The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet
By Christopher Stern
Sunday, January 22, 2006;
Do you prefer to search for information online with Google or Yahoo?
What about bargain shopping -- do you go to Amazon or eBay? Many of us
make these kinds of decisions several times a day, based on who knows
what -- maybe you don't like bidding, or maybe Google's clean white
search page suits you better than Yahoo's colorful clutter.
But the nation's largest telephone companies have a new business plan,
and if it comes to pass you may one day discover that Yahoo suddenly
responds much faster to your inquiries, overriding your affinity for
Google. Or that Amazon's Web site seems sluggish compared with eBay's.
The changes may sound subtle, but make no mistake: The telecommunica-
tions companies' proposals have the potential, within just a few
years, to alter the flow of commerce and information -- and your
personal experience -- on the Internet. For the first time, the
companies that own the equipment that delivers the Internet to your
office, cubicle, den and dorm room could, for a price, give one
company priority on their networks over another.
This represents a break with the commercial meritocracy that has ruled
the Internet until now. We've come to expect that the people who own
the phone and cable lines remain "neutral," doing nothing to influence
the content on your computer screen. And may the best Web site win.
For more than a year, public interest groups, including the Consumer
Federation and Consumers Union, have been lobbying Congress and the
Federal Communications Commission to write the concept called "network
neutrality" into law and regulation. Google and Yahoo have joined
their lobbying efforts. And online retailers, Internet travel
services, news media and hundreds of other companies that do business
on the Web also have a lot at stake.
Meanwhile, on the other side, companies like AT&T, Verizon and
BellSouth are lobbying just as hard, saying that they need to find new
ways to pay for the expense of building faster, better communication
networks. And, they add, because these new networks will compete with
those belonging to Comcast, Time Warner and oth er cable companies --
which currently have about 55 percent of the residential broadband
market -- this will eventually bring down the price of your
high-speed Internet service and television access.
Would these new fees imposed by carriers alter the basic nature of the
Internet by putting bumps and detours on the much ballyhooed
information superhighway? No, say the telephone companies. Giving
priority to a company that pays more, they say, is just offering
another tier of service -- like an airline offering business as well
as economy class. Network neutrality, they say, is a solution in
search of a problem.
Maybe you've never heard of this issue -- and if so, you're far from
alone. In my job as a media analyst, I've been talking in recent
weeks to lobbyists for some of Hollywood's major entertainment
conglomerates. These are people who know that consumers' ability to
download their studios' movies and television shows as easily and
cheaply as anyone else's will be key to the studios' future
profits. Yet hardly any of them were more than vaguely concerned about
the potential ramifications of network neutrality.
But lately the issue, a matter of heated debate on obscure blogs and
among analysts like me, has begun to attract the attention of the
mainstream press. There are a couple of reasons.
One is that Congress is taking first steps toward updating and
rewriting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a key legal underpinning
for media, telecommunications and Internet activity. This process,
required by technological advances, will probably take a year to
complete.
More dramatically, executives at AT&T and BellSouth got into the
headlines recently with a series of audacious statements. In a
November Business Week story, AT&T Chairman Edward E. Whitacre
Jr. complained that Internet content providers were getting a free
ride: "They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any
wires. ... They use my lines for free -- and that's bull," he
said. "For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use
these pipes for free is nuts!"
It was a stunner. Whitacre had apparently declared that AT&T planned
to unilaterally abandon its role as a neutral carrier.
Whether or not you agree with Whitacre, you can understand his frustration.
Companies like Google and Yahoo pay some fees to connect to their
servers to the Internet, but AT&T will collect little if any
additional revenue when Yahoo starts offering new features that take
up lots of bandwidth on the Internet. When Yahoo's millions of
customers download huge blocks of video or play complex video games,
AT&T ends up carrying that increased digital traffic without
additional financial compensation.
But for public interest advocates, Whitacre's outburst was a Clint
Eastwood moment. "Make my day," said Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge,
which focuses on defending consumer rights in the digital world.
Previously, the group had been having trouble convincing members of
Congress that there was a network neutrality problem. Legislators and
staffers repeatedly had noted to Sohn that no major telephone company
had ever used its network to discriminate against other
companies. "Whitacre just made the case for regulation," said
Sohn. "This was as good as it can get."
Other AT&T executives and spokesmen later said that Whitacre had
only been talking about access to a new high-speed broadband
network. Industry executives also assured critics that despite
Whitacre's bluster, AT&T would never block any Web site, or even
degrade the service of a company doing business on the Internet --
even if that service was a voice-over-Internet company such as Vonage,
which competes directly with AT&T's core telephone business.
But the blog storm over Whitacre's comments had hardly died down when
an executive with BellSouth was quoted saying that the company would
consider charging Apple five or 10 cents extra each time a customer
downloaded a song using iTunes. Bloggers erupted again, saying that
this would certainly drive up the cost of the hugely popular music
downloading service.
Google and others say that the prospect of telephone companies
imposing new fees on innovative and successful ventures is exactly the
kind of thing that deters online commerce. "If carriers are able to
control what consumers do on the Internet, that threatens the model of
Internet communications that has been wildly successful," said Alan
Davidson, Washington policy counsel for Google.
Cable companies abhor the idea of enforced network neutrality just as
much as the telephone companies. But so far their executives have
remained silent, and stayed out of the crossfire.
The Republican-led Congress is struggling with the issue. On one hand,
it has taken a deregulatory approach to the Internet, but on the
other, it can't ignore the concerns of Google, Yahoo and eBay, some of
the most successful companies of the last 10 years. These companies
alone have built up businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars
on an unfettered Internet. Moreover, unfettered Internet access has
come to be seen by Americans in general as not just a privilege or a
product, but a right akin to free speech and free association.
Over the coming months, the Telecommunications Act will take shape as
several different legislative proposals are combined to create a final
law. Some of the proposed bills include language on network
neutrality, others don't.
The conventional wisdom is that the recent statements by Bell company
executives have given network neutrality some momentum. But the bill
is not expected to be completed until 2007, leaving lots of time for
lobbyists to= battle over the strength of the final language.
The FCC, spurred by Commissioner Michael Copps, acknowledged the
importance of the issue last October, when it approved two mammoth
mergers in the telecommunications industry -- Verizon's $8.5 billion
purchase of MCI and SBC Communications' $16 billion purchase of AT&T
(SBC quickly assumed the more widely known brand name of AT&T).
One of the few conditions that the FCC put on the merged companies was
that they abide by the concept of network neutrality for at least two
years. But it's not clear if companies would even be in violation of
the relatively vague FCC language if BellSouth or AT&T proceeded with
their plan to give one company "priority" over others on the
Internet. Last week I asked several telecommunications lawyers,
including some FCC staffers, if AT&T would be in violation of its
merger agreement if it granted "priority" status to some companies for
a fee. The consistent response I got was, "That's a really good
question."
At the end of the day, Google's Davidson says that his biggest worry
is not for Google but for the prospect of bringing fresh innovation to
the Internet. After all, if worse comes to worst, Google can pay AT&T
or BellSouth to maintain its role as the Internet's dominant search
engine. But the bright young start-up with the next big innovative
idea won't have that option.
Author's e-mail:
cstern@medleyadvisors.com
Christopher Stern is a media policy analyst with Medley Global Advisors.
Copyright 2006 The Washington Post Company
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the use of
which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This
Internet discussion group is making it available without profit to group
members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information in their efforts to advance the understanding of literary,
educational, political, and economic issues, for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of
the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S.
Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner, in this instance, Washington Post Company.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Direct replies are unlikely to be read. To reply use the address below:
falco(underscore)md(atsign)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk
Marcus Didius Falco (