Carriers beat tech companies on Net Neutrality

Stan Beer
Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:08

Your IT - Home IT

In what is shaping up to be a battle between the US IT and telco giants, the owners of the networks that carry internet traffic have won a first round victory over the large internet providers. The battle is all about who controls the content flow over the networks.

Lining up in one corner are the giant carriers and cable companies, such as AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, among others. However, in the other corner stands a formidable coalition of internet and technology giants, including Microsoft, Intel, Yahoo, eBay and Amazon.

At issue is whether the carriers can have the right to give preference to traffic providers who pay higher fees, do sweetheart deals with content providers that will favour their traffic over other content providers, or even have the right to give preference to their own content. Needless to say, this does not sit well with the internet technology and content providers. They want legislation to regulate for what they call "Net Neutrality" which would enshrine in law that all internet providers have equal access to networks for their traffic.

Despite their best lobbying efforts, however, the tech giants could not persuade the House Committee on Energy & Commerce to ammend the Communications, Promotion, & Enhancement Act of 2006 so that the Federal Communications Commission would have the power to regulate the practices of carriers concerning internet traffic.

Regardless of the initial defeat, however, the tech giants are fighting on. They have now lobbied the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to introduce legislation that will allow unfettered access to the net to companies not affiliated with carriers.