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Few Are Neutral in Net Neutrality Battles

It's content providers vs. ISPs as Congress mulls legislation

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.Com

May 7, 2008 

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act, introduced in February by Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Chip Pickering (R-MS), would update communications law to enshrine net neutrality principles and mandate investigation of any abuses by network or content providers.

Markey, chairing yesterday's hearing as head of the Telecommunications and the Internet, said that "This debate is not over whether carriers can or cannot perform network management. It is not about whether carriers can fight piracy, or spam, or help parents with content controls...The question is whether in the name of network management, policymakers permit carriers to act in unreasonable, anti-competitive fashion."

Piracy was on the minds of speakers such as Mitch Bainwol, head of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In his testimony, Bainwol claimed that "At any given moment, over 10 million users are online offering well over 1 billion files for copying through various peer-to-peer (p2p) networks or other online sources.

"Online piracy has become so severe that it is causing significant congestion over our broadband networks, degrading the online experience for consumers and imposing unnecessary costs on ISPs," he claimed. Bainwol argued that any net neutrality laws have to allow networks the ability to control traffic in order to identify and block illegally-shared content.

Steve Peterman, co-creator of Disney's hit phenomenon Hannah Montana, also said that pirated content was depriving writers and creators of revenue from their work, but that the freedom to create afforded them by the Internet was worth preserving.

"During our recent 100-day strike, many writers, became interested in creating original content for the Web...[Some were] posting original content for free, for the sheer joy of being able to work without notes from thirty executives with no sense of humor," he said.

"In order for writers to reintroduce diversity back into media and entertainment, we must have a level playing field on an Internet without gatekeepers."

A reasonable response?

The centerpiece of all recent debates over net neutrality was the discovery that Comcast was interfering with users of the popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing service.

The allegations put Comcast and other cable companies on the defensive as Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin promised to investigate the affair, but Kyle McSlarrow, head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), said that controlling or blocking P2P applications was "a reasonable response to an identified congestion problem."

"If even a small fraction of customers are using these bandwidth-intensive applications at the same time, it can interfere with the ability of the vast majority of all other customers in that area to surf the web, watch streaming video, make voice-over-IP calls, or engage in other routine uses of the Internet," McSlarrow said.

The Comcast revelations reignited the net neutrality issue, leading to hearings held by the FCC across the country, and testimony before the Senate on the need to maintain the Internet as a free and open marketplace of creativity and innovation.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, reiterated that preserving net neutrality was not about protecting piracy or illegal acts, and that network providers have been blocking legitimate services such as Internet calling service Skype in their zeal to stop P2P file-sharing.

"[N]etworks should be able to manage heavy users -- but that doesn't excuse blocking every user from running a particular program," Scott said. "It is important to point out that P2P services do not use more bandwidth than consumers have already paid for. In fact, hefty monthly bills earned Comcast 80 percent profits on its cable modem service."

Scott Savitz, CEO of online shoe store Shoebuy.com, said that the "free and open" Internet enabled his business to grow from four people to 140, with 4.5 million visitors per month.

"Ultimately, a consumer's enjoyment of the Internet has been, and should remain, based on their choice, not the consequence of a deal that a website makes with a network operator to receive enhanced treatment or prioritization," he said.

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