"The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet"

Read the full opinion piece By Christopher Stern in the Outlook Section of The Washington Post. (January 22, 2006.)

"Public interest groups, including the Consumer Federation and Consumers Union, have been lobbying the (U.S.) Congress and the (U.S.) 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."

The U.S. "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."

Public Knowledge, a consumer rights NGO focusing on the digital world, "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."

However, recently "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!'"

Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge is quoted: "Whitacre just made the case for regulation. This was as good as it can get."