net neutrality-conrad yutzy

8/7/2019 Net Neutrality-Conrad Yutzy

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/net-neutrality-conrad-yutzy 1/18



�This update of the original 1934 Communications Act promised to bring the information

revolution to the doorstep of every American.

�On signing the act, President Clinton declared that it would protect consumers against

monopolies, and usher in an era of broadband competition where youll be able to order

up every movie ever produced or every symphony ever created in a minutes time.

�Soon after, powerful phone and cable lobbyists went to work to undermine the open

access standard for Internet services that the new law was intended to establish.



�Under the Bush administration, the FCC tossed out open access requirements for high-

speed Internet services.

�In 2002, the agency declared that high-speed cable Internet access would no longer

be considered a telecommunications service that required openness protections, but

rather an information service that did not.

�A Supreme Court decision in 2005 supported the FCCs move. Soon thereafter, the FCC

reclassified broadband delivered by the phone companies as an information service,

too.



�In an interview with BusinessWeek, BellSouth CEO Ed Whitacre asked, Why should

[people] be allowed to use my pipes? He said, The Internet can't be free in that sense

for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is

nuts!

�Whitacres stated intention to get rid of Net Neutrality was soon echoed by other

network executives. In their view, the information superhighway was a toll road, where

the big ISPs and a few well-heeled corporate partners would claim broadbands fast lane

for themselves.



�In April 2006, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition launched and soon grew to include more

than 800 organizations in support of an open and neutral Internet.

�Within six weeks, more than one million online activists signed a petition supporting NetNeutrality, and thousands of bloggers took up the cause. This unlikely alliance covered the

political spectrum, putting the "fear of voters in the hearts of Washington politicians."

�Massive public support for Net Neutrality derailed a dangerous overhaul of the Telecom Act

that failed to protect Internet openness.



�Two months into SavetheInternet.com's campaign, user-generated videos on Net

Neutrality started to circulate via YouTube. Web comic Kent Nichols posted a monologue as

"Ask a Ninja" that urged people to take action at SavetheInternet.com. In time, his video

garnered more than one million views, driving scores of new activists to the campaign.

�Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Stevens further roiled social networks after a

recording of his rant against Net Neutrality, in which he described the Internet as a series

of tubes, spread from Internet forums to become a running gag on the Daily Show. The

videos and Stevens rant brought the issue of Net Neutrality to whole new audiences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H69eCYcDcuQ



�By the end of 2006, companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast had spent more than $150

million to gut Net Neutrality, but couldnt overcome widespread public opposition.

�At the beginning of 2007, AT&T agreed to respect Net Neutrality as a two-year condition of

its merger with BellSouth. The merger conditions showed that Net Neutrality was being

taken seriously in Washington, where the phone and cable lobby had long dictated policy.



�Two incidents in late 2007 exposed the telcos gatekeeper ambitions. In September 2007,

the New York Times revealed that Verizon Wireless had prevented NARAL Pro-Choice

America from sending text messages to its own members. Verizons blocking put the

company in the same league as AT&T, which just one month earlier had censored the live

Webcast of a Pearl Jam performance that included criticism of President Bush.

�These episodes showed that when given the option, phone companies will discriminate

against content they don't like, and they served as a wake-up call for anyone concerned

about their plans to manage Internet content over their networks.



�Comcast gave us a glimpse of a world without Net Neutrality when an Associated Press

investigation found that the company was blocking the file-sharing application BitTorrent.

Despite mounting evidence of Internet blocking, the company refused to come clean anddisclose its network management practices.

�A coalition of Net Neutrality supporters and legal scholars filed a complaint with the FCC

urging the agency to stop the cable giant from meddling with our ability to share

information online.



�The FCC took complaints about Comcasts blocking seriously and convened a series of

hearings across the country so that interested citizens could weigh in -- if only.

�Fearful that the public would lay into Comcast for violating Net Neutrality, the company

hired people off the street to pack the first hearing at Harvard. The seat fillers took up so

many chairs that Comcast critics and other members of the public were denied entry by

campus police.



�In response to the public outcry and a mountain of evidence, FCC Chair Kevin Martin

sanctioned Comcast for violating Net Neutrality. The complaint was brought to the agency

after a coalition of Net users and activists caught the cable giant red-handed, jamming use

of popular file-sharing applications. Martin ruled that Comcast had "arbitrarily" blockedInternet access and failed to disclose to consumers what it was doing.

�But the ink was barely dry on the FCC order before Comcast filed an appeal in federal

court, challenging not only the FCCs ruling but the agencys entire authority to protect Web

users.



�Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to make Internet policy a cornerstone of

his campaign. Within two days of his election, Obama's transition team laid out the

presidents science and technology agenda, and at the top of the list was his promise to

protect the open Internet.

�"A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network

in history. It needs to stay that way," the agenda states. "Barack Obama strongly supports the

principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the

Internet."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP01t0Z4Hr8



�Buried deep in President Barack Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is a

line that brought a smile to the faces of Net Neutrality supporters -- and a scowl to phone

and cable industry lobbyists.

�It requires that billions of dollars directed to connect more Americans to broadband be

spent on services that meet "nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations."

The stimulus package stipulated that federal money earmarked for high-speed Internet

services be spent the right way: building networks that abide by Net Neutrality.



�The fight for Net Neutrality gained ground when Julius Genachowski, the newly appointed

FCC chair, announced plans to expand existing agency rules to protect the free and open

Internet.

�Genachowski said the FCC must be a "smart cop on the beat, preserving Net Neutrality

against increased efforts by providers to block services and applications over both wired and

wireless connections. The chairman cited a number of examples where network providers

had acted as gatekeepers and concluded, If we wait too long to preserve a free and open

Internet, it will be too late.



�As the FCC began its Net Neutrality inquiry, the phone and cable industry that controls

Internet access for 97 percent of Americans went into a spending overdrive. They funneled

tens of millions of dollars to nearly 500 Washington lobbyists.

�Their mission: further consolidate industry control over Internet access and kill Net

Neutrality, before the public gets a say. Untold sums have also been spent on Astroturf

groups, fake grassroots operations that are funded by corporations to manufacture the

impression of public support and that generate misinformation designed to sway

policymakers and the media.



�In early April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the FCC lacks the

authority (under the jurisdiction it claimed) to protect Internet users against network

operators. The case was brought by cable giant Comcast after it was sanctioned by the FCC

for blocking Net users access to file-sharing applications.

�The ruling effectively gave corporate gatekeepers control over Internet users online

experience, and it called into question the FCCs ability to act as a public interest watchdog

over our countrys communications media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyGTD6yvBUo



�Three weeks after the federal appeals court undermined the FCCs ability to safeguard

Internet users, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition delivered nearly 250,000 signatures on

petitions asking the agency to take swift action to protect the free-flowing Web.

�They called on the FCC to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, over

which the agency has unchallenged authority to promote broadband access and to protect

consumers. Its now up to Chairman Genachowski to heed the call, face down phone and

cable lobbyists, and stand with Internet users in defense of an open Internet.



Sources

www.savetheinternet.com

www.gigaom.com/2010/12/21/a-net-neutrality-timeline-how-we-got-here/

www.sidecutreports.com/.../net-neutrality-a-historical-timeline/

net neutrality-conrad yutzy

Documents