Taking the Measure

The US Congress should promptly pass HR3458—the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. Despite the whining of the badly misnamed Hands off the Internet organization, passage of the act is necessary to ensure a level playing field for content providers and consumers, no matter how big or how small. Net neutrality is critical to ensure that consumers, not deep-pocketed content providers in secret deals with service providers, determine what content they want to access. Net-neutrality opponents—the marketers and financiers concocting schemes to charge a premium for faster content delivery, need to get out of the way before they do as much damage to the Internet as so-called financial engineers have done to the economy. It's time for opponents at Internet service providers to get out of the way and let their real engineers deliver the bandwidth necessary to ensure that everyone's content gets through without discrimination. It shouldn't take a Presidential address to a joint session of Congress to get Congress to tell net-neutrality opponents to "keep your hands off my Internet content."

As the New York Times put it in an editorial recently, "On the Internet today, a Web site run by a solo blogger can load as quickly as any corporate home page. Internet service providers, including leading cable and phone companies, want to be able to change that so they can give priority to businesses that pay, or make deals with, them." That should not be allowed to happen. The Times continues, "If Internet service providers are allowed to choose among content, it would be bad for everyone but the service providers. Businesses could slow down or block their competitors’ Web content. A cable company whose leaders disapprove of a particular political or social cause could block sites supporting that cause." As the Times points out, that's not a hypothetical issue.

The arguments of Hands off the Internet (if they can be called arguments) are disingenuous at best. Consider this: "Hands off the Internet believes that the best way to avoid burdensome and unnecessary regulation and mandates is by ensuring that market forces deliver the benefits that only fair competition can bring to the American consumer—maximum choice in supplier, content, and technology. For example, recent years have shown that companies have raced to develop a variety of high-speed Internet access systems, including cable wire, DSL and wireless. These events were competition in its purest form, and we directly benefited consumers through lower prices." OK, but HR3458 makes absolutely no mention of transmission media, so what's the point of the example? And how can the organization possibly claim that the way to give consumers "maximum choice in…content" is to restrict that content?

What does the bill say, specifically? You can read it in its entirety here. Here is a link to the relevant section. In a nutshell, providers

• may not discriminate against anyone's ability to transmit or receive content,

• may not impose any charge beyond user end charges,

• may not prevent a user from attaching any device to the network as long as the device does not harm the network,

• must offer Internet access to any person, and

• may not prioritize one provider's traffic over another's.

One issue that net neutrality opponents harp on is telemedicine. Here is what the bill says: "Reasonable Network Management—Nothing…shall be construed to prohibit an Internet access provider from engaging in reasonable network management consistent with the policies and duties of nondiscrimination and openness set forth in this Act…a network management practice is a reasonable practice only if it furthers a critically important interest, is narrowly tailored to further that interest, and is the means of furthering that interest that is the least restrictive, least discriminatory, and least constricting of consumer choice available." Does anyone reasonable think telemedicine isn't a "critically important interest"? At least for those who have the health insurance that might actually pay for it?

But Hands off the Internet doesn't seem to want to be reasonable. It interprets that "Reasonable Network Management" clause as, "The best new technologies designed to meet America’s growing demand for online content will be held hostage to the whims of Congress, federal regulators, and ultimately judges who must referee the inevitable lawsuits"—as if backroom deals among service and content providers wouldn't prompt their own stream of lawsuits, not to mention public-relations fiascos.

As I mentioned earlier, I would be in favor of letting critical telemedicine data carry the equivalent of an ambulance's flashing red light, if that were technically feasible. But that presents its own problems. Which institutions would be authorized for the preferential data rates? How would remote temporary field clinics or applications like an American version of Mashavu get access to telemedicine data's preferential treatment?

What's most appalling about net neutrality's opponents is the "can't do" attitude. They can't possibly provide all the bandwidth consumers want, so they'll have to limit traffic—except that of their "friends." In fact, In-Stat recently reported that in the US download speeds are improving and consumers are generally satisfied with the speed of their current broadband connections.

What's happening here is that the marketing, finance, and lawyers within the companies that oppose net neutrality want do for the Internet what "financial engineers" did for the economy. It's time for Congress to pass HR3458 and tell opponents to "keep your hands off consumers' Internet content preferences." Then let real engineers step up and deliver the necessary bandwidth.