Net neutrality amendment dies / Telecommunications bill goes to Senate without provision sought by Web firms
June 30, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter
This is sad, but could be worse. And it could get worse. Its too hard to cut through the mumbo-jumbo as expressed in this WSJ article:
While the underlying themes of "equality of access" and "stifling regulation" are relatively simple, everyone on both sides is struggling to explain the issue.
"I'm trying to figure out a way to shorten 'proscriptive government controls over products and services delivered over the Internet' into one or two words. It ain't easy!" a Hill aide groused recently. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska told a group of cable executives last week, "The more I seek to find what the problem is, the harder job I have of trying to define it."
When a problem is overwhelming I look at it first in simplistic terms. Without net neutrality the owners and controllers of the networks will have increasing control over the content that flows over those networks. Think radio over the last 15 years. Network TV. The music business. Consolidation can stifle art, culture, competition and communication.
Nobody really understands the net long-term effect of rejecting net
neutrality. So the pols should leave the Internet alone until it is
understood.
And watch this: Before the Music Dies
Net neutrality amendment dies / Telecommunications bill goes to Senate without provision sought by Web firms:
"In a dramatic tie vote Wednesday, a U.S. Senate committee rejected an
amendment that would have preserved the status quo of equal pricing for
all Internet traffic, an issue known as network neutrality. Although
the net neutrality amendment did not..."