Thanks!

Professor Kevin Howley of DePauw University writes in Sunday’s Hartford Courant that Net Neutrality is the key to the continued success of the Internet.

Prof. Howley: Phone and cable ‘distort the issue’

“Put simply, net neutrality protections ensure that network operators provide nondiscriminatory access to the network and online content,” Prof. Howley writes.

“Think about it like this: When you make a phone call, the telephone company can’t keep you from talking to whomever you want, or prevent you from talking about whatever you like. Net neutrality applies the same operating principle to Internet communication.”

This principle has been in place since the Internet’s inception. In fact, the notion of non-discrimination dates to the era of railroads, when it was determined that rail lines could not favor one company’s goods over the same product of another.

Every business could transport goods to customers without bribing rail bosses for the right. In today’s information delivery market, these guidelines helped make the Internet what it is: “a vehicle for economic development, technological innovation and democratic communication,” Prof. Howley writes.

The phone and cable companies loathe any innovation that they can’t control. They’re swarming Congress with lobbyists and lawyers and blitzing the airwaves with ads designed to mislead the public and eliminate long-standing Net Neutrality provisions.

This campaign of deception “distorts the issue,” writes Prof. Howley:

“For example, representatives of the cable and telephone industries argue that the government has no right to tell them what to do with ‘their pipes.’ What these network operators neglect to mention are the enormous government subsidies that went into creating the Internet in the first place - and that continue to support network build-out, all at taxpayers’ expense.”

We now have a new chance to stop the telecom lies and turn the tide in favor of enforceable Net Neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission has asked for public comment on whether it should put into force Net Neutrality rules or allow the phone and cable companies to forge ahead with plans to become the Internet’s ultimate gatekeepers.

“[The phone and cable] pay-as-you-go formula runs counter to the Internet’s democratic character,” writes Professor Howley. “Furthermore, with this level of control over Internet access, network operators would have little incentive to upgrade their systems. … In short, monopoly control of the Internet undermines technological innovation and stifles competition.”

The public can speak out on this issue. Use SavetheInternet.com’s action tools to contact Congress, write a letter to your local newspaper, and tell your story to the FCC. Act now. The FCC’s deadline for public comment is June 15.

Read the thousands of comments that are now streaming via SavetheInternet.com to the FCC and it becomes clear that the Internet means a lot of different things to a lot of people.

But there’s one common theme: People are passionate that the Net be kept free of corporate gatekeepers so they can continue to connect to one another and make their own decisions about what they want to see, do or share with the rest of the world.

Charles & Carol Swigart

“In rural America, the Internet is very important in staying informed. We read several national newspapers every day to get the news our local paper does not thoroughly cover,” write Charles & Carol Swigart of Huntingdon, Penn. “All persons who publish on the Internet should have an equal opportunity to have their voices heard.”

The Swigarts are not alone. Whether you’re a small business owner, single mom, student, blogger, concerned citizen, political candidate, social services worker, green thumb, dog lover or Esperanto enthusiast, protecting Net Neutrality is fundamental to your family life, work and interests.

The Internet Is a Lifeline

Power Leyba

For some it’s even a matter of survival:

“My significant other and I are living with AIDS, sadly my partner no longer is able to move about as freely as before. His survival depends on his ability to communicate with others in his position, the access of most updated research and treatments,” writes Power Leyba in his comments to the FCC.

“Please, please do not take away a very, very important tool in our fight against this bug.”

“The Internet has been a lifeline for me, because it has been my gateway to the outside world, that I have such trouble navigating,” writes Travis Thompson, who sustained a debilitating spinal chord injury when he was 19. “When you become disabled you have many barriers that you must overcome, and although losing the freedom of the Internet is not a physical obstacle, it is another barrier that I will fight to break through.”

Net Neutrality Is Democracy’s Oxygen

For others, a free and open Internet is the key to reinvigorating America’s democracy.

Kelly Jones

“We are entering a new paradigm in technology,” writes Charlie Koenen of Mequon, Wis. “But our rights to access information, voices and content on a level playing field are the cornerstone of democracy… Let them continue to charge customers to access, but not to limit free speech by charging for content!”

Kelly Jones of Portland, Ore., tells the FCC that “corporations are not, and have never been, qualified as gatekeepers to American communication and growth. … If the FCC believes in true democracy, it must ensure that broadband providers do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic based on its ownership, source or destination.”

Keeping Small Business Healthy and Innovating

Karen Chun

Karen Chun, a single mother from Paia, Hawaii, says that an open Internet allowed her to build her own successful business selling educational games online. “I am living the American dream because of Network Neutrality. And my games have been used in thousands of schools all over the world.” She tells the FCC:

“Net Neutrality allows the American Dream to be lived by moms like me. Please don’t cut off this opportunity for those who come after me. Without net Neutrality, my little website would have been consigned to oblivion because I wouldn’t have been able to pay the fees the ISP’s want to charge for fast connections.”

“Net Neutrality insures that my business can be shoulder-to-shoulder with other businesses on the Net,” writes Ben Moss, a small business owner from Garland, Texas. “If I should suddenly have to pay premium charges just to have access to certain areas of the Internet, I do not know for certain that I could stay in business. This is arbitrary and unfair.”

Fostering Free Speech

Norie Ayukawa

Others talk about the Internet as the last safe harbor for free speech and diversity of choice.

“Currently the media is not diverse at all and the only option I have found to escape from it has been the Internet,” Norie Ayukawa of Philadelphia tells the FCC. “If the Internet is controlled by powerful people with money, will it ever be what it has been? Will we be able to enjoy diversity?”

“The greatest hope that this country has is the reconnection of American voices with our political system,” writes Jennifer Bonck, a blogger from Metairie, La. “The internet is the first medium that is truly interactive, in which one person’s voice can reach millions.”

Jennifer Bonck

“When I heard of the telecom companies plans to overhaul how the internet works and how content is delivered, I was shocked and wanted to do whatever I could to make sure the Internet stays an open beacon forever,” wrote Preston Isaacson, a 10th grader at West Boca Raton Community High School in Boca Raton, Fla.

“I’ve preached this basic right that we all take for granted to many people at my school, I’ve even written a class project on the whole issue in a debate paper.”

Will the FCC Hear Us?

The FCC has sought out these public comments as part of its “Notice of Inquiry” on broadband practices. The federal agency wants to know specifically:

1. Why a neutral Internet is important in people’s lives.

2. How their lives would be changed by phone and cable company efforts to discriminate against content online.

3. Whether the agency should enforce rules that would prohibit such discrimination.

Preston Isaacson

The deadline for comments is June 15 and already tens of thousands are telling their stories. We need to tell thousands more before the public comment period expires.

At its core, the fight for Net Neutrality is a story about protecting Internet freedom for the public good. No one tells that story better than the people who depend upon an open and neutral Internet every day.

The remarkable stories told here reflect the experiences and concerns of most all Americans. It’s now up to those in Washington to hear these voices and protect the Internet freedoms that are central to our life and work.

AT&T chief Ed Whitacre handed over the keys to his replacement Randall Stephenson yesterday, but not before giving a rousing pep talk to fellow executives in the company’s San Antonio board room. We just received “exclusive” video of the AT&T chairman’s parting speech.

>> Watch Big Ed’s Swan Song

“There’s a problem. It’s called Net Neutrality,” Whitacre told the heirs to AT&T’s telecommunications empire. “Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We’re gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission.”

This statement echoes those made in the press by Whitacre and Stephenson over the last two years.

Despite claims of poverty whenever pressed to offer better services, these AT&T execs are privately gloating over billions of dollars in profits over the last 12 months. Moreover, Whitacre (and now Stephenson) are pressuring Congress to allow them to provide privileged Web access to their customers to companies that pay them a special fee.

The phone and cable companies claim that this sort of discriminatory “double dipping” — charging both consumers and content providers — is necessary to provide the high-speed services that Americans demand. But it’s a fundamental shift in the neutral way the Internet has always worked. In essence, it takes away user choice — the most basic tenet of the Internet — and hands it to AT&T.

“Will Congress let us do it?” Whitacre asks his colleagues. “You bet they will — cuz we don’t call it cashin’ in. We call it ‘deregulation.’ ”

‘Deregulation’: AT&T Code for More Handouts

It’s Whitacre’s brand of “deregulation” that has left the United States behind other nations in providing fast, affordable Internet to more people.

Recent broadband data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had the U.S. slipping to 15th out of 30 nations in per capita broadband use. Our free-fall will continue as long as we allow phone and cable companies to dictate broadband policy in Washington and monopolize broadband access across the country.

From his high perch atop AT&T, Whitacre’s view of the Internet had more to do with plumping up margins than delivering faster, more open and affordable services to more Americans. He understood that to dominate new media, AT&T needed to exploit its control of this “last mile” of broadband access into tens of millions of American homes. To get there, he was more than willing to scrap the fundamental principle that had made the Internet a beacon for free speech and economic innovation.

Such corporate brinksmanship, however, didn’t sit well with those of us who actually use the Internet to connect with others. (Whitacre reportedly had no computer on his desk and tasked his secretary to check his email). Whitacre probably never expected he’d collide with a new but resilient foe — engaged Internet users — and ignite a brushfire that would forever alter the debate about the future of the Internet.

Igniting the Netroots

For speaking out about his scheme to control the Web, Whitacre can be credited for forging a forceful opposition to business as usual in Washington policymaking. His words galvanized the first groups that would forge an alliance around the issue of Net Neutrality.

By the summer of 2006, hundreds of groups from across the political spectrum had joined. More than 1.5 million online activists signed a petition to Congress, and thousands of bloggers took up the cause. This unlikely alliance, in the words of Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), instilled the “fear of voters” in the hearts of Washington politicians.

Yet even now, Whitacre remains intent to defy public opinion, funnel cash into Washington and win over control of the Internet once and for all.

“With all of our generous campaign contributions, I’m quite certain that Congress will see it our way,” he said during his farewell speech. “Who else they gonna listen to? The public?!?”

Fortunately for everyone else, the public is making itself heard. Just yesterday we flooded the FCC with more than a quarter-million comments demanding that our airwaves be made available for a more open, ubiquitous and cheap Internet. We also called on the federal agency to keep this valuable new resource out of the hands of price-gouging phone and cable companies like AT&T.

Thousands more are telling their stories to the FCC, taking action to ensure that phone and cable companies do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic.

The stories are still pouring in as more people take this issue to heart, demanding that we create a faster, affordable, more democratic Internet for everyone and stop one of the country’s most powerful corporate lobbies from setting the agenda in Washington.

UPDATE: For those in the media citing these “Bid Ed” quotes as the real Whitacre. I suggest you watch the video and judge for yourself.

This weekend, the Federal Communications Commission got an unexpected surprise when a quarter-million people flooded their offices with letters urging the agency to use our airwaves to connect more Americans to an open and affordable Internet.

The mass outcry comes in advance of the FCC efforts to set rules for the upcoming auction of the 700 MHz band of “spectrum.” If used right, this slice of public airwaves could beam cheap, high-speed Internet signals to every park bench, coffee shop, workplace, and home in America.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s Legacy Is In The Air

Dominant phone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon and Comcast — don’t want that. They’re spending millions to lobby the FCC and Congress to hand them our airwaves.

Their plan is to horde this valuable asset and stifle competitive and cheaper alternatives to their overpriced networks. The FCC can either decide to open these airwaves to new competitors and innovation or let them be squandered by the same companies that now monopolize access for more than 96 percent of U.S. residential users.

The hundreds of thousands of people who called for open access were sparked in part by SavetheInternet.com Coalition members Free Press, MoveOn.org Civic Action and Working Assets, which alerted their members last week about the upcoming sell-off of this spectrum.

The spectrum auction also attracted the attention of presidential hopeful John Edwards, who last week sent a letter urging the FCC to open up to half of the available airwaves to all Americans.

The Americans who spoke out over the weekend sent a clear signal to the FCC: Use our airwaves for the public good.

It’s now up to the FCC to respond.

Chairman Martin at a Crossroads

The FCC has the power to set auction rules that would protect competition and innovation in the marketplace — and has used this power in the past.

It would be a huge mistake for the federal agency to put our public airwaves in the hands of companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast who see national high-speed wireless Internet as a threat to their existence.

The FCC’s commissioners must weigh the public benefit against the narrow interests of this cartel of giant phone and cable companies.

Public Knowledge co-founder Gigi Sohn called this decision “a legacy-defining moment” for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

“Will he withstand entreaties from the most powerful media and communications companies in the world to let the “free market” rule the auction?” she asks in a commentary on Huffington Post. “If he does, and shapes the auction to promote new broadband competition, Kevin Martin will have forged a lasting positive legacy.”

Martin, who is doubtless looking at his own political prospects, could burnish his reputation by opening the Internet to better competition and innovation. Aside from that, it’s simply the right thing to do.

Keeping the Internet People-Powered

Until very recently, most people hadn’t heard about this issue, or didn’t know that such valuable airwaves are up for grabs.

But this slice of spectrum could hold the key to the future of communications. It once beamed the Brady Bunch, The Cosby’s, Charlie’s Angels and the A-Team into tens of millions of homes. In 2009, when TV stations switch from analog to digital TV, the airwaves they once occupied will become available for other uses. Those using these frequencies have the power to send an Internet signal through tall buildings and over mountains — at the speed of light.

The government hopes that revenues from its sale (anticipated to be as high as $30 billion) will help pay down the national deficit — burdened by the high cost of fighting in Iraq. In 2005, Congress ordered television broadcasters to vacate their airwaves by February 2009, as part of the digital television transition. The FCC will auction off the abandoned real estate no later than January 2008.

In a filing in April, members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition — including Consumers Union, Media Access Project, Public Knowledge and Free Press — urged the FCC to ensure that the upcoming auction sets aside at least half of the available spectrum for open and nondiscriminatory Internet access. This will guarantee that new competitors have the opportunity to compete in a marketplace until now dominated by a handful of companies.

After years of phone and cable company control over our Internet marketplace, the United States has fallen to 15th in the world in high-speed Internet rankings, with few choices and some of the highest prices for the slowest speeds in the world. We will continue to fall as long as we let a few phone and cable companies dictate access for the vast majority of Americans.

Many people are now spreading the word about this issue using online petitions, blogs and social networks. The recent outpouring of support echoes the grassroots efforts in 2006 when more than 1.5 million people rallied behind the issue of Net Neutrality and stopped efforts by phone and cable companies to become gatekeepers to Internet content.

It’s time we had a frank public conversation about how a more open Internet can reinvigorate our economy and democracy. But first we need to stop all efforts to undermine the Internet we have.

Anyone who cares about this should join the fight now.