Save Access

from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Internet speed must not be based on ability to pay

By BARRY ORTON

Posted: July 22, 2006

Wonder why newspapers and television programs have been full of advertisements from an AT&T puppet "grass-roots" group called "TV4US," pushing the concept that cable TV prices are too high and competition is needed?

The remaining big phone companies, led by AT&T and Verizon, are trying to persuade Congress to let them offer video services without bothersome local contracts that protect consumers. Time Warner and Charter have these traditional agreements with the municipalities that they serve in Wisconsin.

The phone companies figure that the many millions spent on advertising, lobbying, campaign contributions and legal fees can generate many billions in revenue if Congress passes the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act.

Instead of continuing the tradition of local control, the bill would allow phone companies to be granted national video franchises by the Federal Communications Commission.

It would completely prohibit local governments or the FCC from requiring what is now standard for cable television providers: agreements to serve everyone within municipal limits.

But the phone companies, desperate for the revenue from video, want to skip this crucial step of local accountability.

In fact, AT&T has already told Wall Street that it does not intend to serve everyone with its network improvements, dubbed Project Lightspeed.

As USA Today reported in May: "During a slide show for analysts, SBC (now AT&T) said it planned to focus almost exclusively on affluent neighborhoods. SBC broke out its deployment plans by customer spending levels: It boasted that Lightspeed would be available to 90% of its 'high-value' customers - those who spend $160 to $200 a month on telecom and entertainment services - and 70% of its 'medium-value' customers, who spend $110 to $160 a month.

"SBC noted that less than 5% of Lightspeed's deployment would be in 'low-value' neighborhoods - places where people spend less than $110 a month."

The COPE Act would also remove local regulation of customer service. If the bill passes, cable companies are also likely to seek FCC oversight instead of municipal control, since West Allis' regulations differ somewhat from Waukesha's, which in turn differ from Milwaukee's.

But will bureaucrats at the FCC know the difference between Waukesha and West Allis when a consumer complains? Or will individual complaints be filed and forgotten in the same room with the thousands of complaints about sexual innuendo on TV situation comedies?

Implicit in the COPE bill is the promise of broadband competition in most metropolitan areas, with two wire-based companies, a phone company and a cable TV company; each offering bundled voice, data and video services to consumers who benefit from better service at lower prices.

Minimal regulation by the FCC will magically allow economic competition to occur, the phone companies argue.

Also implicit in the bill is the misguided concept that the owners of the broadband "pipes" that make up the telecommunications network should not only have the right to control the content traveling on the network, but also should be able to set prices for network use according to type of content, speed and message size, even the ownership of the content's originator.

Much like how cable TV companies also own some of the programming they carry, phone companies want similar rights to make different deals with different network users.

This would be a drastic change from the current Internet situation, wherein phone companies operate as common carriers and cannot discriminate due to the content or the source of a message.

This concept of common carriage stems from the 19th-century abuse of farm product shipments by railroads. Congress extended it in the 20th century to other shippers and telecommunications.

Common carriage is the fundamental principle that supports the Internet as an open, unbiased medium, and it should not be abandoned.

But after a lopsided 299-152 vote for COPE in early June in the House, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a similar bill by a 15-7 vote on June 29.

The only provision that did not pass handily was the net neutrality amendment, which would task the FCC with assuring that the network that underlies the Internet continues to operate on common carrier-like principles.

Unfortunately, net neutrality failed to pass on a 11-11 Commerce Committee vote. Its many supporters, who worry that the Internet could become a toll road where certain preferred providers operate at "Lightspeed," while other messages are carried on slower, less reliable paths, threaten to hold the entire bill hostage in the Senate, where 60 votes are necessary to stop debate and let passage proceed.

One of net neutrality's strong supporters has been Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who said, "Without protections, Internet users could have fewer choices, as only those content providers who could afford to pay the corporate toll-keepers would be able to offer a competitive level of service. We need to make sure that the Internet retains its crucial role as an open forum for the free exchange and dissemination of information."

Wisconsin Democrat Sen.Herb Kohl's statements on net neutrality so far have carefully finessed the issue. Kohl is considered a swing vote.

Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said the bill lacks sufficient protection for consumers: "In the absence of meaningful consumer protections, network operators will have the unfettered capacity to discriminate against unaffiliated online content, degrade their quality of service, or impose steep charges for prioritized traffic.

"Without further improvements that restore principles of non-discrimination, competition and service will suffer as network operators begin to dictate the choices available to consumers. For a bill of this importance and impact, consumers deserve far better."

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the Commerce Committee's powerful Republican chairman, sees things differently, arguing for variable tolls for differing messages.

"The Internet is not something you just dump something on," Stevens said, seeming a bit confused by the technology. "It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled. And if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

In a now-famous 11-minute committee meeting rant that was widely podcast and then lampooned by Jon Stewart and many others, Stevens said he'd experienced these delays himself: "I just the other day got - an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially."

Despite calling an e-mail message "an Internet" and expressing confusion about how the Internet works, the chairman's message is clear: The owner of the wire should call the shots.

If, in the interest of letting the phone companies compete with the cable companies for our video dollars, Congress finesses net neutrality by mandating no more than a simple study by the FCC, be prepared for a very different Internet.

Content branded "premium" could speed along using the fast lanes, and information for the rest of us might crawl bumper-to-bumper on the service roads.

Could such an environment spawn the next Google, Yahoo or Amazon? Could garage start-ups thrive on such an Internet? Could blogs? Will Congress then have to re-invent the "common carrier"?

Inouye is correct: Consumers deserve far better.

Barry Orton is professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and editor of former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin's blog, Waxingamerica.com

From the July 23, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel