By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.com
April 26, 2007
It was a classic "David versus Goliath" scenario -- a rag-tag coalition of consumer groups, single issue advocates, and technologists against the full might of telecoms like AT&T; and Verizon, the cable industry, and a complacent Congress.
Yet somehow, the "Save the Internet" campaign successfully prevented passage of laws that would have ended the standard of "net neutrality" for usage of the open Internet.
"Save The Internet" celebrated its first anniversary today, marking its successes with a conference call between Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), a supporter of net neutrality, and member groups of the organization, including representatives from MoveOn.org, Free Press, the Christian Coalition, and Public Knowledge.
In a statement announcing the conference call, Dorgan lauded the coalition for bringing an obscure issue into the public limelight and promoting enough awareness to get nearly two million signatures of support.
"Sixteen months ago, when I began to fight to keep the Internet free of discrimination for consumers and businesses, it was a pretty lonely battle," Wyden said. "Save The Internet's presence has helped turn the tide in this critical debate."
Dorgan, along with fellow Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), introduced legislation in January 2007 that would prohibit Internet network service providers from "discriminating" or prioritizing content that traveled along their networks, a key tenet of net neutrality.
They had tried to get the bill passed in the previous, Republican-dominated Congress, but were unable to do so.
However, support from Save The Internet and its allies brought so much attention to the issue that a massive update to telecommunications law was prevented from passing due to concerns over lack of protection for net neutrality.
As the 109th Congress turned its attention to the November 2006 elections, the telecom update which had passed the House stalled out in the Senate -- and a new Democratic majority promised to take a much closer look at telecommunications law upon taking office.
Save The Internet successfully organized disparate groups to band together under the premise of protecting an open Internet for both healthy democracy and open commerce.
Allies as unlikely as the Gun Owners of America and the Center for Digital Democracy signed on to a platform that supported Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn's "vision of how a free and open Internet can be of benefit to all."
"We look forward to moving ahead this year on a comprehensive telecommunications policy that will result not only in an Internet based on Net Neutrality, but in making high-speed Internet service more affordable and available across the country," Sohn said.
"I think Save The Internet's success surprised everyone, especially those who thought the public was way too uninterested in issues like 'net neutrality' to give a damn," said Tim Wu, Columbia University professor and a charter member of the coalition. Wu has authored numerous papers supporting the concept of net neutrality as essential to the beneficial development of the Internet.
In The Beginning
Until early January of 2006, most people outside of tech circles didn't even know such a concept as "net neutrality" existed, and certainly were unable to define it. The concept essentially means ensuring that all Internet service providers enable equal access to all content -- not favoring Google's search engine over Yahoo's, or blocking access to a competitor's Web page.
News that telecom bigwigs such as AT&T;'s Ed Whitacre planned to charge content providers extra to use bandwith, and that network companies such as Cisco were developing technology that would prioritize content and deliver faster service to higher-paying clients galvanized the technology community. Lines were quickly drawn as each side accused the other of confusing the debate and attempting to penalize Internet users.
After several months of debate, the Save The Internet coalition launched in April 2006 and proceeded to bring mass media attention to the issue. Free Press campaign director Tim Karr said at the time that "Network neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet."
"Net neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online and the public demands Congress not dismantle it," Karr said.
Although pro-net neutrality companies like Google and Microsoft brought big money and power to the dance, it was the efforts of the independent coalition that raised public awareness on the issue, rallying celebrities from Alyssa Milano to R.E.M to Moby to support net neutrality on Capitol Hill and on the Web.
What's Coming Next
Although preventing bad law from passing can definitely be considered a victory, net neutrality supporters such as Karr are aware that they still have a long way to go.
Frustrated by their failures in Congress, telecom and cable companies have moved to the state level, pushing for video franchising laws that bypass local community regulations and speed up deployment of high-powered Internet services.
Although AT&T; promised to respect net neutrality rights as part of its mega-merger with BellSouth, the company promised to do so only for 36 months, and may also have sidestepped that provision for its high-speed "U-Verse" service.
Tim Karr recognized that the issue of net neutrality is far from settled in his statement. "A year ago, all the so-called experts said we would never win anything. We proved them wrong. And we'll prove them wrong again. This has been an exciting year, but we won't rest until we've done all we can to bring neutral, faster, affordable Internet to everyone."
