Net neutrality heats up again

Net neutrality legislation may be gaining new life in Congress. A cadre of congressmen, representing the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee, yesterday introduced a five-page bill that would make net neutrality provisions part of the federal anti-trust law. Separately, the initial hearing of a Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) telecom reform measure became a debate on Net Neutrality, according to published reports.

Sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the chairman of the committee, the “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" also was endorsed by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the committee co-chair, and committee members Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.).

The measure earned the immediate endorsement of Internet giants, including Amazon, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, who issued a statement in support of the measure.

BellSouth was quick to state its opposition.

"This bill proposes to fix a problem that does not exist," said Herschel Abbott, BellSouth vice president governmental affairs, in a prepared statement. "It proposes to regulate the internet that has developed in an atmosphere of freedom devoid of regulation. That is a bad idea. The end result of this legislation is that consumers will be forced to bear the entire cost of the Internet. Moreover, if network service providers cannot offer customers a quality product, something the details of this legislation would all but prohibit, then the opportunity for a bigger, better, faster broadband will be something available only in other countries."

The bill would require broadband access providers to provide reasonable and nondiscriminatory interconnection of their facilities to unaffiliated content, service and application providers and prohibit them from blocking consumer access to lawful content, services and applications.

“The FCC [Federal Communications Commission] recently reported that 98% of American consumers get their high-speed broadband from either a cable company or a DSL [digital-subscriber-line] provider,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement. “This virtual duopoly creates an environment that is ripe for anti-competitive abuses and for which a clear antitrust remedy is urgently needed.”

His bill would allow injured parties to sue in federal court under anti-trust law.

The initial Senate Commerce Committee hearing on telecom reform included comments from committee Democrats such as Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Barbara Boxer of California on the need for tougher provisions on Net Neutrality.