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**The Internet\'s Future**\
EDITORIAL: Congress should stay out of cyberspace.

Monday, June 12, 2006; A20

THE SENATE will hold hearings tomorrow on \"net neutrality,\" the idea
that the pipes and wires that form the Internet should treat all content
equally. An alliance whose membership ranges from the Christian
Coalition to MoveOn.org is demanding that Congress write this neutrality
into law; the groups fear that the pipe owners \-- cable companies,
phone companies and so on \-- might otherwise deliver corporate content
at high speed for high fees, while consigning political Web sites and
hobbyists to a slow information byway. These arguments are amplified by
the big Internet firms \-- Google, Microsoft, eBay \-- that want their
services delivered fast but don\'t want the pipe owners to extract fees
from them. Although this coalition lost a House vote last week, its
prospects are stronger in the Senate. (The Washington Post Co. owns
broadband networks that might charge Web sites for fast delivery. It
also produces Web content that might be subject to such fees, so it has
interests on both sides of this issue.)

The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a non-neutral
Internet would resemble cable TV: a medium through which only corporate
content is delivered. This analogy misses the fact that the market for
Internet connections, unlike that for cable television, is competitive:
More than 60 percent of Zip codes in the United States are served by
four or more broadband providers that compete to give consumers what
they want \-- fast access to the full range of Web sites, including
those of their kids\' soccer league, their cousins\' photos, MoveOn.org
and the Christian Coalition. If one broadband provider slowed access to
fringe bloggers, the blogosphere would rise up in protest \-- and the
provider would lose customers.

The cable TV analogy is doubly wrong because media culture reflects
technology. Cable TV has been the province of Hollywood studios because
making a sitcom is expensive and hard \-- though, with cheap digital
camcorders, this is changing. Equally, the Internet is the province of
experimenters and hobbyists because creating your own Web site is cheap
and easy. Thanks to technology, the Internet will always be a relatively
democratic medium with low barriers to entry.

The serious argument for net neutrality has nothing to do with the cable
TV boogeyman. It\'s that a non-neutral net will raise barriers to entry
just slightly \-- but enough to be alarming. To use a far better
analogy: Competitive supermarkets aim to please customers by offering
all kinds of goods, but the inventor of a new snack has to go through
the hassle of negotiating for display space and may wind up on the
bottom shelf, which dampens his incentives. Equally, if the owners of
Internet pipes delivered the services of cyber-upstarts more slowly than
those of cyber-incumbents, the incentive to innovate might suffer. Would
instant messaging or Internet telephony have taken off if their
inventors had had to plead with broadband firms to carry them?

This concern should not be exaggerated. Cyber-upstarts already face
barriers: The incumbents have brand recognition and invest in tricks to
make their sites load faster. The extra barrier created by a lack of net
neutrality would probably be small because the pipe owners know that
consumers want access to innovators.

Meanwhile, there are powerful arguments on the other side. If you want
innovation on the Internet, you need better pipes: ones that are faster,
less susceptible to hackers and spammers, or smarter in ways that nobody
has yet thought of. The lack of incentives for pipe innovation is more
pressing than the lack of incentives to create new Web services.

You can see this imbalance in Wall Street\'s low valuation of Internet
infrastructure firms such as Verizon (price-to-earnings ratio: 12) and
its infatuation with Internet service firms such as Google
(price-to-earnings ratio: 69). You can see it, too, in the fact that
U.S. broadband infrastructure lags behind that of East Asia and Europe.
Allowing builders of Internet infrastructure to recoup their investment
by charging the Googles and Amazons for use of their network would
balance the incentives for innovation more closely. Ironically, a
non-neutral net would accelerate the spread of zippy broadband that can
deliver movies, allowing hobbyists with camcorders to take on Hollywood
studios. The neutrality advocates who criticize corporatized cable TV
should welcome that.

The weakest aspect of the neutrality case is that the dangers it alleges
are speculative. It seems unlikely that broadband providers will degrade
Web services that people want and far more likely that they will use
non-neutrality to charge for upgrading services that depend on fast and
reliable delivery, such as streaming high-definition video or relaying
data from heart monitors. If this proves wrong, the government should
step in. But it should not burden the Internet with preemptive
regulation.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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May 15, 2006

**EDITORIAL: Not so fast on Network Neutrality**

Congress can\'t always tell what\'s best for the Internet, especially in
anticipating problems that haven\'t yet occurred\
\
Net neutrality \--the idea that everybody should be equal in cyberspace
\--has gained momentum as a populist movement but seems no closer to
becoming law. A House committee recently rejected a Democrat-led effort
to legislate the principle, and a current Republican-sponsored draft
telecommunications bill mostly avoids the subject.\
\
As Congress contemplates an overhaul of telecommunications laws, it
faces the question of whether and how to put limits on the providers of
the Internet\'s data pipes. The telecommunications companies that own
the pipes are interested in building fast lanes, which certain customers
would pay a premium to use. Content providers, Internet retailers and
many traditional Internet user alliances are concerned that such plans
will unbalance the playing field, giving the wealthiest Internet players
advantages at the expense of the small and underfunded.\
\
Part of the problem with the discussion of net neutrality is that beyond
broad statements of principles, people disagree about what it is. For
example, few would disagree that the Internet should be free of
discrimination, that a user should have as unfettered access to a
suburban teen\'s fan site as he does to Disney.com.\
\
The disagreements come in writing laws to preserve those principles. The
problem with Congress dictating the Internet\'s myriad legal contracts,
technological underpinnings and business behaviors is that Congress
simply isn\'t wise enough or prescient enough to make the right
choices.\
\
More important, Congress could unwittingly interfere with the
development of a more robust Internet, capable of delivering more
multimedia, faster, in two directions. In addition, it would hand more
enforcement powers to the Federal Communications Commission, a step that
itself may have unwelcome, anti-democratic consequences. For these
reasons, Congress should not overreach with its efforts to enshrine the
principle of net neutrality.\
\
While neutrality advocates can cite a few cases in which network
providers have shut down access to sites of which they disapproved, the
telecom companies correctly note that they don\'t have a history of
playing favorites with Web sites or users. They say they understand the
Net\'s culture of openness and recognize it would be bad business to
violate it.\
\
They point out that it\'s costly to build a high-speed network. They ask
why customers willing to pay a premium for high speeds and broad lanes
\--\"throughput,\" as the geeks say \--shouldn\'t be allowed to do so.
On this point, the telecoms are right \--as long as nobody else\'s
ability to use the network is diminished.\
\
Congress is under pressure from both sides of the debate, but it should
borrow the first principle of the medical profession: First, do no harm.
Bad law, in this case, could be much worse than no law. And it\'s not
entirely clear yet what a good law would look like.

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July 24, 2006

**Protect the Web**

***Our position: Congress should resist the effort to over-regulate the
Internet.***

Net neutrality: The term alone, with its connotations of fairness, gives
its supporters a rhetorical advantage over its opponents.\
\
But if Net neutrality went by another label \-- pre-emptive government
regulation of the Internet \-- more people might regard it with the
skepticism it deserves.\
\
If mandated by Congress, Net neutrality would require the telephone and
cable companies that provide Internet service to treat equally all Web
sites, from the most humble blogs to e-commerce sites run by
multibillion-dollar corporations. In practice, it would prevent Internet
service providers from financing upgrades to their networks by charging
Web site operators for faster delivery of their content to computer
users.\
\
The need for such upgrades is growing as more and more consumers add to
the data load on the Internet by downloading music, videos and games,
and use their computers for phone calls and teleconferences. Without
upgrades, the increasing volume of traffic could slow to a crawl on the
information superhighway.\
\
Net-neutrality advocates argue a government mandate is needed to prevent
Internet service providers from censoring the Net by slowing access to
some Web sites or shutting them out entirely. This disturbing scenario
has been invoked by public-interest and political advocacy groups, as
well as by major online companies that just don\'t want to pay more for
faster delivery of their content. But it hasn\'t happened. If it did,
many subscribers \-- who typically have a choice among providers \--
would punish the offender by switching to a competitor.\
\
Besides inhibiting the ability of Internet-service providers to raise
money for upgrades, new federal regulations could embroil them in
lengthy and expensive legal disputes over the scope of the rules. That,
too, could stall upgrades.\
\
So far, Net-neutrality advocates have failed to win over a majority in
Congress. Both the House and a Senate committee have endorsed a more
reasonable proposal as part of an overhaul of telecommunications
regulations. The proposal would call for the Federal Communications
Commission to monitor how Internet-service providers treat Web sites. If
problems arise, the FCC could alert Congress.\
\
But Net-neutrality advocates aren\'t giving up. Supporters of the
concept in the Senate are threatening a filibuster if a Net neutrality
provision is not added to the telecommunications overhaul when it comes
up for consideration on the floor later this year. Senators would do
more harm than good in yielding to that threat.\
\
The Internet has flourished under minimal regulation. Its development
has been driven by the demands of the market rather than the dictates of
the government.\
That\'s reason enough for Congress not to impose a sweeping regulation
to solve a problem that hasn\'t materialized.

**Seattle Post -Intelligencer**

July 24, 2006

EDITORIAL: Consumers shouldn\'t have to pay for upgrades

The proposal, dubbed net neutrality, would make it illegal for broadband
companies to shift any portion of payments to high-tech businesses that
use and would benefit from new broadband investments.

Consumers beware. The bill making its way through Congress is little
more than an effort to make consumers pay for upgrades to the Internet
that have financed some of the biggest corporate users of this important
resource.

While the bill has support from some consumer advocates and high-tech
groups, prior to today, there have been no empirical studies that
demonstrate how consumers are helped by paying more.

Requiring that \"only consumers pay\" would result in higher consumer
prices, dampen consumer demand, reduce broadband investments and lead to
between \$24 billion to \$32 billion in consumer welfare losses - or
about \$285 per broadband household

Stripped of all pretension, rhetoric and the sturm und drang of net
neutrality, the basic message from some of the nation\'s largest,
best-managed and fastest-growing companies to consumers is
straightforward and unmistakable: We want you to pay the entire bill for
the basic Internet infrastructure, which we will then use to sell our
products and services to you.

## ![](media/image4.png){width="2.5527777777777776in" height="0.9388888888888889in"} 

## *July 21, 2006*

## Editorial: A light touch for the Internet

In the fog of debate over the information superhighway, clear thinking
has become road kill.

In the place of rational ideas are hyperbole and dire, even apocalyptic
warnings. The future of the online world as we know it is at stake, both
sides say.

The one clear thing is this: The Internet does not need the heavy-handed
regulation that some in Congress propose. The Internet has fared quite
nicely under a light regulatory touch as it has developed into the most
robust, efficient and creative medium the world has ever known.

At the heart of the current debate, now centered in the Senate, is net
neutrality - the idea that all Internet content should be treated
equally. What is meant by \"net neutrality\" is often in the eye of the
beholder, but most people would say it includes the general principle
that the owners of computer networks cannot control how consumers use
the networks or discriminate against content providers.

The sparring was triggered by the desire of major Internet carriers, led
by AT&T, to offer different levels of service, giving priority to
offerings like

Internet phones and video that suck up limited bandwidth. The carriers
say the issue is quality of service.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com and a diverse coalition that includes most
consumer groups and the Christian Coalition argue that the big broadband
providers will abuse consumers without specific federal prohibitions.
This group wants to prevent phone and cable companies from charging
premiums to providers of Internet content.

This side says, for example, that broadband Internet providers, some of
whom now offer their own Internet phone service, might block customers
from using competing online phone companies. Or make it harder to access
Web sites that hadn\'t paid to affiliate with the provider.

The broadband provider might block or degrade information thought
harmful to its corporate goals. It might even target political
opponents, the argument goes.

Never mind that there is no evidence that broadband providers like AT&T
or Verizon have done any of these roguish things. Never mind that all
have pledged not to do that. Never mind that safeguards already exist in
both federal antitrust and communications law to punish such behavior.

And never mind that broadband companies have built networks - are
building them still - and have every right to flexible pricing to help
recoup the infrastructure costs.

Indeed, the uncertainty of increased regulation puts financing for
future building projects at risk - a huge impediment to innovation.

Consumers will benefit mightily from the bigger, faster pipes that are
now under construction, likely in ways we have yet to imagine.

Still, a few well- crafted, additional safeguards aren\'t a bad thing,
and those can be found in a bill passed by the House last month that
would make it easier for telephone companies to offer video services.
The bill also authorized the Federal Communications Commission to
enforce principles the commission released last year. Among them:
Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers,
application and service providers and content providers.

The penalty for violations: \$500,000. The Senate is considering its own
version of the bill.

But that\'s not enough for proponents of tougher measures. They often
argue that more regulation is needed because there isn\'t enough
competition among broadband providers. But there already is stiff
competition among cable and DSL providers - in this market and most
others - and new technologies using satellites and power lines promise
even more competition in the coming years.

Another argument is that broadband providers want to create a fast lane
for those who can afford to pay for it, leaving the rest of us in the
slow lane. That\'s more foggy thinking. What the providers want to do is
lure some data streams onto an even faster network - for a price, of
course. It doesn\'t mean the old lane will be slower.

And, of course, those who want specific prohibitions written into
federal law say they are on the side of consumers. But how do consumers
benefit when innovation at one end of the highway is snarled because of
a misguided attempt to protect it at the other?

Finally, there\'s this: Does anyone really think that giant companies
like Google or Microsoft will take offenses by broadband companies -
should they occur - lying down?

Not likely.

Bill Gates knows his way around the federal courthouse.

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**June 28, 2006**

**EDITORIAL**\
\
There\'s a movement in Congress to make telephone and cable companies
treat all the traffic on their high-speed networks the same. That is,
charge all content providers the same price. This goes by the name \"net
neutrality.\" It sounds vaguely appealing in a country that values
equality for all.\
\
Don\'t be fooled. Nobody\'s talking about knocking Google, Amazon,
MoveOn.org or any other content off the Internet. This is about who\'s
going to foot the bill to make sure the high-speed networks thrive and
grow.\
\
Net neutrality is aimed at companies such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast.
It would bar them from charging premium prices for faster delivery of
TV, movies or phone service over the high-speed broadband networks they
are building across the country.\
\
Consumers will benefit if Congress encourages competition. It breeds
more choices, lower prices and innovation. Net neutrality stops all that
in its tracks.

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\
**June 12, 2006**\
COMMENTARY - Ominous Neutrality\
**By STEVE FORBES**\
***June 12, 2006; Page A12***

If Washington followed Hollywood\'s lead and gave an academy award for
the best political sound bite of the year, \"Net Neutrality\" would win
in a walk for 2006.

Net Neutrality has everything a good sound-bite needs. It\'s short,
alliterative, easy to remember and so elastic in meaning that anybody
can define it according to their own agenda.

That\'s exactly what\'s happening in Congress right now, where
well-financed lobbyists are pushing for Net Neutrality legislation.
According to their benign-sounding definition of Net Neutrality, it
simply means that Internet network operators like the phone and cable
companies would have to give equal treatment to all traffic on their
networks, without giving anybody\'s content preference in handling.

But scratch the surface of what the Net Neutrality crowd is really
asking for and Net Neutrality shifts from benign to ominous. The Net
Neutrality lobbyists want Congress to pass innovation-stifling
restrictions on what companies like Verizon and AT&T can do with the new
high-speed broadband networks that these companies haven\'t even
finished building yet.

These networks are the superhighways for transporting Internet content
and services. They will also permit Verizon and AT&T to offer
Internet-based cable TV programming in competition with the cable
companies, which are already competing in telecom services. Slapping
these networks with premature, unnecessary regulations would be an
inexcusable barrier to the tradition of innovation at the heart of the
Internet.

Phone companies are investing billions of dollars in network innovation.
They need to earn a return on their investment. One logical way is to
use a tiered pricing system that charges a premium price for premium
services \-- which means super-high-speed services that gobble extra
bandwidth on the network. Those who are happy with standard broadband
speeds would continue to pay the same prices they pay now.

This is the same concept as mail service. If you want to send a letter
from New York to Los Angeles and delivery in four days to a week is OK,
you can do it for the price of a 39-cent postage stamp. But if you want
the letter delivered without fail by 10 a.m. the next morning, you
upgrade to FedEx and pay for the extra service you need.

Applying this principle to the Internet sounds like the free market at
work to me. But the Net Neutralizers have responded with manufactured
indignation, claiming that it\'s discrimination and somehow tramples on
the egalitarian spirit of the Internet.

Surprisingly Google, E-Bay and other high-tech companies have become big
supporters of this flavor of Net Neutrality; they supposedly fear
discrimination from Internet providers. But they have no real evidence
to back-up such fears. If problems do arise, then these can be dealt
with specifically.

Passing Network Neutrality legislation would be a re-run of the
disastrous Telecom Act of 1996 which forced telecom companies to provide
network access to competitors at below market prices. That certainly put
a chill on network innovation. After years of wasteful lawsuits and
regulatory infighting, the network access monster has gone away. But it
was a big factor in letting America slip into the high-tech Stone Age,
with consumer broadband services lagging far behind what\'s available in
countries like Japan or South Korea.

Members of Congress are on the verge of updating the Telecom Act to
bring it into sync with a communications industry that\'s been
transformed by Internet technology. As they do that, we can only hope
they don\'t compromise the future of this vital industry by falling for
the rhetoric of Net Neutrality. After all, what network operator would
be silly enough to keep investing billions in network innovations if the
fruits of its innovation had to be given away at below cost?

Mr. Forbes is president & CEO of Forbes, Inc. and editor-in-chief of
Forbes magazine.

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**July 20, 2006 - Revisiting net neutrality \-- Shifting to neutral**

Back in February, [I wrote in support of \"network
neutrality\"](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2006-02-02-congress-open-pipes_x.htm)
the idea that the companies that make the Internet\'s pipes or, if you
prefer, [\"tubes\"](http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/?entry_id=1512499)
wouldn\'t be allowed to create different tiers of service. The fear is
that only those that can afford to pay exorbitant fees would be able to
deliver things like high-quality video.

But a few weeks later I wrote that I had changed my mind based on what I
had learned since then. I think a Net neutrality law is at best
unnecessary, at worst a bottleneck to development.

Since then, I\'ve clarified my thinking further. There\'s a fundamental
question here: Do the pipe owners view what travels on their networks
based on the content, or their connection?

Let me clarify.

Imagine in the near future that Disney wants to stream the movie
\"Aladdin\" to a customer in New York. To get it there, it starts on
Sprint (Disney\'s network provider) but has to travel over Verizon\'s
network. Disney pays Sprint a lot of money for a fast connection, but of
course doesn\'t pay Verizon a thing.

Here\'s the \$64,000 question: Will Verizon see \"Aladdin\" as content
coming from Disney, or as bytes coming from Sprint?

Proponents of Net neutrality say Verizon will consider it a Disney
movie, and demand money from Disney. Opponents say Verizon will consider
it generic Sprint data, and send it through as always.

The latter is more likely, for the majority of content. Pipe builders
are not going to cripple or block access to anyone\'s content. Market
forces and anti-trust laws won\'t allow it.

But a less-regulated Internet will give those providers the ability to
build ultra-high-speed connections for customers that need them for
as-yet unknown applications --- maybe a nationwide virtual-reality game,
or long-distance robotic surgery.

So we\'re not talking about affecting anyone\'s home connections. Your
ability to use Google or watch YouTube isn\'t in danger. The next big
thing will still be able to get access to your heart and mind. This is
about being able to give priority to certain traffic for businesses that
need a guaranteed speed.

A poorly crafted neutrality law would prevent the Verizons of the world
from being able to offer that ultra-high-speed connection. \"Sorry, but
the law says your robotic-surgery traffic has to be mingled with e-mails
to Mom.\" And would you want surgery by a doctor who may be experiencing
a half-second delay?

Andrew Kantor is a technology writer, pundit, and know-it-all who covers
technology for the [Roanoke Times](http://www.roanoke.com/wb/xp-index).
He\'s also a former editor for PC Magazine and Internet World. Read more
of his work at [kantor.com](http://www.kantor.com/). His column appears
Fridays on USATODAY.com.