Because of those decisions, broadband providers will inevitably try to block or degrade Web content from competitors such
as independent VoIP or video providers, net neutrality advocates say. Despite net neutrality opponents’ assertion that broadband
competition is coming, advocates point to statistics showing large telecom and cable providers in control of 98 percent of
the U.S. broadband market, with no more than two providers available to most U.S. residents.
For the free market to work, there needs to be healthy competition from multiple providers, said Paul Misener, vice president
of global public policy for Amazon.com. True broadband competition for most U.S. residents is five to seven years away, Misener
predicted.
“It’s just not happening. It may, but it’s not there now,” Misener said at a recent net neutrality debate at George Washington
University. “When [opponents] say, ‘Let the free market work,’ ask them where that market is.”
Class struggle among ISPs
Broadband providers have repeatedly said they will not block or impair their customers’ existing access to competing Web content
or services.But Pac-West, an independent telecom provider based in Stockton, Calif., fears that lack of a net neutrality law
could lead to large broadband providers blocking Internet traffic from smaller providers. That could mean the end of many
smaller providers, Pac-West officials said.
The FCC decision on DSL effectively ended so-called common carrier rules requiring broadband providers to carry all traffic,
and it’s not a reach to predict large broadband providers will stop accepting traffic from smaller competitors, said John
Sumpter, Pac-West’s vice president.
Sumpter compared the broadband market without net neutrality rules to the Web browser market. When Microsoft began to bundle
Internet Explorer with its operating system, it nearly killed its top competitor, Netscape.
The current cable/telecom duopoly in broadband, coupled with telecom carriers AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon controlling about
70 percent of the nation’s Internet backbone, means the large broadband providers have a advantage similar to Microsoft’s
in the browser wars, Sumpter said.
“Left to their own devices, the larger carriers will be able to cripple all competition,” Sumpter said. “Customers attached
to the smaller carrier will inevitably migrate to the larger carrier.”
On the other side, more than two dozen network equipment vendors have called on Congress to reject net neutrality rules. In
a May 17 letter to congressional leaders, 35 manufacturers — including Alcatel, Cisco, Corning, and Qualcomm, among others
— said there’s no evidence that broadband providers now block or impair competing content. The Internet doesn’t need the burden
of new regulations, the letter said, adding that passing a bill risks “hobbling the rapidly developing new technologies and
business models of the Internet with rigid, potentially stultifying rules.”
If net neutrality becomes law, broadband providers won’t be able to separate out new services such as video over IP, said
Mike McCurry, co-chairman of the Hands off the Internet coalition, representing AT&T, BellSouth, and other net neutrality opponents.
“They want to make the Internet into one dumb pipe,” said McCurry during a debate with Amazon.com’s Misener. “There’d be no
room for innovation.”
A net neutrality law passed in Congress would lead to a long proceeding in the FCC, causing a delay in new services offered
by the broadband providers, McCurry said. New regulations would also discourage investment in broadband providers, he added.
“This regulatory scheme might, in fact, impede the kind of investment we’ll need to make if we’re going to have this Internet
of the future,” McCurry said. “We know there are billions of dollars that are needed to get the enhancements and improvements
we want on the Internet.”
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