In an effort to advance the net neutrality debate in the U.S.
Congress, two groups have offered their own proposals to prohibit
broadband providers from discriminating against competing Internet
content, while allowing providers to separate out part of their
networks for specialized products.
Civil liberties advocacy group the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CDT) and New Yorkers for Fair Use, comprised of
businesspeople and technology advocates, both released net
neutrality proposals Tuesday, two days before the U.S. Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is set to debate the
issue as part of a hearing to amend a wide-ranging communications
bill.
The proposals differ in their approaches, but both would allow
broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. to
separate part of their broadband pipes for services they or their
partners offer. But on the public Internet, broadband providers
would be required to treat all content equally.
The CDT wants a "narrowly tailored" set of net neutrality rules,
even though large broadband providers have questioned the need for
new regulations, said Leslie Harris, CDT's executive director.
Broadband providers have said there's no need for new rules because
there's no evidence of them blocking or impairing competing
content, but a lack of broadband competition makes for a
"significant risk" of that happening, Harris said.
If Congress fails to now pass a net neutrality law, it will be
difficult to come back later and force broadband providers to
retroactively change their business plans if problems do occur, she
said. "In our view, the Internet is too important -- the openness
of the Internet, the democratic platform it creates, the economic
engine it creates -- to take that level of risk," Harris added.
The CDT proposal, available at http://www.cdt.org/speech/20060620neutrality.pdf,
would require broadband providers to treat all Internet content and
services equally. At the same time, the providers could experiment
with private network services where they could make exclusive
agreements with services such as broadband video, a practice
objected to by some net neutrality advocates.
The CDT plan would allow Congress to monitor the Internet for
evidence of discriminatory treatment.
The second proposal, authored by Seth Johnson, a member of New
Yorkers for Fair Use, would also allow providers to offer tiered
services, but they would not be able to classify them as "Internet"
services if they discriminate against competing content. The
proposal is detailed at http://www.dpsproject.com/.
Broadband services that divide content being sent over the
Internet would destroy the standards that are the foundation of the
current Internet, Johnson said. If broadband providers can set
their own transport standards, the Internet would stop being a
public medium, he said.
Among those endorsing the Johnson proposal are David P. Reed, a
contributor to the original Internet Protocol design; Miles R.
Fidelman, president of The Center for Civic Networking; and Peter
D. Junger law professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University
in Cleveland, Ohio.
Congress needs to clarify the meaning of Internet connectivity,
the Johnson group said in an e-mail sent Tuesday.
"In effect, under the present circumstances, the system of
developing specifications, which involves the writing and review of
formal documents known as RFCs, which has held since the beginning
of the Internet, would be tossed out by a few large providers and
equipment manufacturers and replaced by corporate fiat," the group
said. "IP-layer neutrality is not a property of the Internet. It is
the Internet."
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