Net neutrality battle heats up: who will control broadband access?

A BILL TO HELP ENSURE THE CONTINUED OPEN ARCHITECTURE OF the internet was voted down in the U.S. House of Representatives last month, leaving content providers, educators, and consumers in a pitched battle with the telecommunications industry over the question of who controls broadband access.

The so-called "Net Neutrality" bill, aimed at preventing broadband carriers from discriminating against competing web content or services failed in committee on a vote of 34-22. The bill was still awaiting a full floor vote as this issue went to press, though some observers say the GOP-controlled rules committee was unlikely to let it get that far.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a similar bill in the Senate that awaits committee debate, while James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Cowers (D-Mich.) introduced yet another version of the bill in the House.

At stake is a potential sharp increase in the cost of using broadband services, and the concern of favoritism in the form of faster speeds for content providers willing to pay the price.

A Verizon Communications official dismissed such claims as "Chicken Little" stories, saying that the telecomm industry needs to charge users for services such as high-quality video to be able to finance the cost of upgrading its network-to-fiber links.

Bur neutrality proponents argue that they already pay high prices for broadband access, and failure to protect the system would essentially be paying twice for the same services.

Unfortunately, for an issue that has the potential to leave dramatic changes in its wake, it is quickly shaping up as another partisan tussle, with Republicans largely siding with the telecomm interests and most Democrats supporting fair access.

Education groups put a positive spin on the bill's committee defeat, reasoning that the vote was closer than expected. "We didn't expect it to pass, so we weren't terribly surprised that the bill was defeated," says Wendy Wigen, a policy analyst at EDUCAUSE who covers internet and telecommunications policy issues. "We feel we're making progress, but we still have a long way to go. Now we are focusing most of our efforts on the Senate. There are still a lot of senators who haven't made up their minds, so we feel we have the ability and the time to make more of an impact on that side."

If the bill fails, Wigen says campuses will likely face increased costs to send high-quality video content for disciplines such as telehealth, and distance education. "If we aren't willing to pay more for premium services, we'll see the quality degrade to the point where we won't be able to use our high-end applications," she predicts. "It will get to the point where the applications are ahead of what bandwidth is available, and if we don't pay, we'll be out of luck. I think it will really have an impact on innovation and applications."