Net neutrality bill expected this week

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once said that, without new Net neutrality laws, "telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway. This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the Internet."

That was nearly two years ago. At the time, legislation giving the Federal Communications Commission new regulatory authority over the Internet was rejected by a 269-152 vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Since then, even though her party has controlled Congress for over a year, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats haven't exactly rushed to enact Net neutrality regulations into law. Maybe it's because cooler heads prevailed; maybe it's because Alyssa Milano and other celebrities are no longer talking about it. I offered some speculations last fall.

Now Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who championed the unsuccessful amendment two years ago, is planning to re-introduce it as soon as Tuesday. His office didn't want to give us a copy on Monday, indicating it was still being drafted. (It's been delayed--Markey had planned on finishing it last year.)

The Open Internet Coalition, which includes Ask.com, eBay, Match.com, Google, and a number of left-leaning advocacy groups, is already heralding the bill's reappearance. It circulated a statement Monday evening saying Markey's legislation "will make Net Neutrality the law of the land, and will require the FCC to protect Internet freedom from the predatory efforts of the telco and cable gatekeepers."

Maybe. It still needs to be enacted first, and that means persuading Congress to take on broadband providers that are politically far better connected than their Web-based opponents. It's also likely to shift the debate over copyright, blocking of peer-to-peer traffic, and reasonable network management to Washington far more than it already has been--injecting political uncertainty into this dispute, with eventual results that may not please either Markey or his enthusiastic allies.

[ordaj]

Forget it

As we've seen, the telecos own our politicians and will get their way. Hell, they just got retroactive immunity for breaking the law.

[knowles2]

who ever pays the most

Well I am sure all the senators just waiting for them checks in post, which ever gang put the highest amount on those checks will win the day.

[disco-legend-zeke]

if 700 MHz were free, the user-owned network is bomb proof.

poor public safety will be spending a few million per community to deploy carrier model high speed infrastructure.

look how nicely your old fashioned WI-FI works.

have you tried MIMO yet?

even in the confines of 2.4 and 5.2 GHz, self forming, self healing networks are delivering real world bandwidth.

deploying all the "new" spectrum, on a modern shared resource model, with standards based radios adding layers of consumer owned mesh support.

the airwaves do, after all, belong to the people, a consumer owned mesh, with unlocked public safety equipment getting priority.

because beam forming creates infinite bandwidth, allowing a few telcos to hold the throttle somehow scares me.

ask you candidate about making 700 MHz free spectrum. This will not hurt the carriers, this means of allocating, by SELLING to a high bidder, will burden the stockholders of telcos with 30 or 40 billion in debt at a time when the focus in telcom is in marketing and customer loyalty.

the last mile is already free and is delivering 100 Mbs today. flat screen TV's and projectors already have 802.11N built in.

the telcos, public safety, and the citizens all will benefit from a dispersed network.

[johnra]

Markey also brought us the v-chip debacle

If there was ever a poster child for free-market intervention, it's Ed Markey. The parallels between his pursuit of net neutrality and his law mandating v-chips be installed in every TV made in america is striking. The v-chips were a waste and we are still paying for it.