But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press — and in theory its freedoms — to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.

This extraordinary twist to “mass media” has catapulted many an everyday YouTube auteur to celebrity-status while turning ideas born in a garage or dorm room into Fortune 500 companies. It is the reason so many Americans are now passionate about protecting their right to choose on the Internet. But it’s also triggered a backlash from the old regime — media corporations that built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America.

This list of media giants includes the nation’s largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.

Say “goodbye” to indy rock bands breaking big via a backyard YouTube video and “hello” to censored rock-and-roll courtesy of AT&T’s “Blue Room.”

Open v. Closed — A Clash of Cultures

This closed business model has proven a financial windfall for the gatekeepers of traditional media. But it comes at a too heavy a cost to the millions of Americans who see the open Internet as the 21st Century’s catalyst for free speech and opportunity.

It’s against the backdrop of this clash of cultures — open versus closed — that an unusual series of official events have occurred this year.

Washington — where lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have long had the home-field advantage — recently witnessed an extraordinary series of public meetings and congressional hearings on the fate of the Internet. If you listen carefully, you might actually hear the people’s interests being represented. They are certainly being expressed.

The 110th Congress has called Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Chad Hurley, the founder of YouTube, to testify in favor of Net Neutrality — the principle that safeguards the Internet against blocking and censorship from Internet service providers. In recent weeks, leading consumer and Internet rights advocates, Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs and Hollywood’s creative community have testified that an open Internet is vital to the health of our economy and democracy.

The Federal Communications Commission has gone one further, venturing beyond the Beltway to take the public temperature on the Internet.

At hearings in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., the agency got an earful; hundreds of Net Neutrality supporters stood before the microphone to condemn Comcast’s recent efforts to block people from using peer-to-peer applications, which make possible the sharing of videos and other rich media without the need for corporate media to broker the content. One after the other. people called on the federal agency for basic protections against Comcast’s brand of digital discrimination.

The New Free Speech Movement

They are not alone. A growing movement of Internet users is pushing for legislation to stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. It has attracted millions of supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition of America, from independent rockers OK Go to the executive producer of the TV show “Hannah Montana.”

Our voices are starting to rise above the din of lobbyists that too often drowns out genuine public debate in Washington. It’s now up to our elected officials to act.

The official inquiry on Net Neutrality has given a public voice to the remarkable consensus in favor of free speech and user choice on the Web. And it may turn out to be more than show. The bipartisan “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” is making its way through the House at this very moment. It is a bill that takes into account the many voices that have spoken out since Net Neutrality became a much-debated principle.

Fundamentally, this bill recognizes that we must establish baseline protection for an unfettered Internet. It doesn’t call for Web regulation, but gives the public the power to stop the old regime from turning the Internet from a revolution of the many into a funnel for the few.

And that’s a freedom worth fighting for.

Before their reincarnation as AT&T the phone company — following their merger with SBC — they were AT&T, the long distance company. (You may remember their never-ending ad campaign, 1-800-CALL-ATT.) The difference between the new AT&T and the old one is the latter didn’t control any wires — they just used them. This distinction is at the center of the debate over Net Neutrality - the idea that those who own the wires cannot block or discriminate against the content flowing over the network.

As a long distance provider, AT&T relied on Net Neutrality rules to ensure access to the customers at the end of these wires. This changed after the company merged with SBC, and then BellSouth, making it the largest Internet service provider in the country. (This chart may help you make sense of this merger craze.) Once it gained power over customer’s Internet connections, AT&T turned into an ardent Net Neutrality opponent.

A Telco’s Change of Heart

On May 28, 2004, AT&T lawyers said:

“The Internet has flourished to date because of openness. Network owners do not tell subscribers which Web sites they can visit or which applications they can run over their Internet connections. …. The commission can directly prevent anticompetitive use of broadband transport facilities and foster unimpeded access to IP applications with modest technology neutral conduct regulation that merely prohibits broadband carriers from discriminating against unaffiliated IP applications an content.”

But here’s AT&T on June 15, 2007:

“There is no need to subject the Internet to a scheme of ‘nondiscrimination’ rules to protect anyone against anticompetitive conduct.”

And: “There is no potential upside to Net Neutrality regulation.”

And finally: “These ‘blocking’ concerns are a sham.”

AT&T Caught Blocking?

Peer-to-peer video distributer Vuze Inc, recently collected information that raises the question of whether AT&T customers were being provided a full and unfettered connection to the Web.

Given the lack of candid disclosure from Internet providers like AT&T, Vuze’s report attempts to shed much-needed light on whether these companies are providing customers with an open Internet experience.

If only AT&T would remember the way they used to be. It’s time they stopped fighting against the wishes of their own customers and started fighting for them.

In exchange, they are supporting the ISPs’ fierce opposition to net neutrality rules that would bar them from pushing everyone else’s video into the Bus Lane, if they even deign to deliver it at all. Variety reports:

at an Institute for Policy Innovation panel addressing online piracy, leaders of Hollywood, the recording industry and the wireless industry touted the beginnings of a long-term relationship built on a foundation of making the Internet a thriving market for legal content and a dead end for bootleggers. “We’re all in this together,” said MPAA chairman-chief exec Dan Glickman.

“We’re moving toward a world where all our interests align,” said RIAA chairman-CEO Mitch Bainwol. “The long-term relationship is much more complex and partner-based,” Bainwol said, suggesting that congestion, while a serious issue for content generators and ISPs alike, is only one common interest.

Could it possibly be that degrading and discriminating against video that competes with Big Media, Big Cable, and Big Telco could be another “common interest?”

As much as we also support fighting piracy, for Big Media to shout “piracy” as a reason to oppose reasonable Net Neutrality rules is a diversionary smoke screen for what’s really going on.

The existing FCC policy principles that call for net neutrality, as well as every proposal to turn those principles into enforceable rules, speak to ensuring that broadband providers allow consumers “to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.”

By definition, pirated content is not “lawful content.” Big Media’s claim that Net Neutrality rules will prevent it from combating piracy goes way too far, as evidenced by Comcast’s recent blocking and slowing of its customers’ access to content distributed by BitTorrent.

In kneecapping BitTorrent, Comcast didn’t just block pirated content, but all BitTorrent content, including legitimate un-pirated content such as a file containing the text of the King James Bible, and video that BitTorrent was distributing on behalf of its clients Fox, Time Warner, and Viacom - all card-carrying members of the MPAA!

At a recent Senate hearing on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act introed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), FCC Chair Kevin Martin spoke disapprovingly of Comcast’s blocking and tackling of BitTorrent and strongly hinted that the FCC would take action, despite Comcast’s claim that the FCC didn’t have legal authority to enforce its net neutrality principles.

Allowing Comcast, ATT, and other broadband gatekeepers to discriminate against video content delivered by the BitTorrents of the Internet world vastly strengthens the competitive position of Big Media’s new Hulu.com as the leading and “safe” web distribution method for video.

Can there be any doubt that as a condition of Big Media’s allying with the broadband providers to fight net neutrality that there is a clear understanding between them that Hulu will never be discriminated against in the way BitTorrent was?

Look for all the Big Media companies currently using BitTorrent and other distribution over the Internet to sign up soon with Hulu. Following that, to ensure they are not discriminated against by broadband gatekeepers and placed at a competitive disadvantage, look for many more video content creators to place their content on Hulu.

In a world without Net Neutrality, linking up with Big Media’s Hulu — and its insulation from Comcast-style discrimination and degrading — will be a matter of self-preservation.

The Independent Film and Television Alliance has called out the MPAA and ISPs and their anti-competitive collusion. Writes the IFTA:

That openness [of the Internet] is threatened by the power of a small number of broadband providers to discriminate unilaterally against some categories of users or types of traffic or to accord preferential treatment to certain content providers over others, all under the ambiguous claim of “network management.” While these providers may have some legitimate issues related to the technical management of their networks, there have already been cases of different treatment of users and it is clear that there must be transparency, equal treatment and an avenue of redress when the providers’ private decisions trespass fair rights of others and the public interest. Thus, the issue is not whether government should regulate the Internet, but whether there will be effective oversight to prevent a handful of corporate giants from imposing their own version of private regulation to the public’s detriment.

The opening of Hulu and the MPAA’s vehement denunciation of net neutrality are intimately related, a double-barreled shot aimed at the heart of the open Internet. The goal of Big Media and the ISPs is nothing less than to turn today’s wide open Internet into a closed system more akin to cable television.

The likely result: as we’ve documented in cable, independent and diverse voices and their content will be inexorably marginalized or silenced.

To prevent this Big Media alliance with Big Cable/Telco from cornering and controlling the Internet, it is time for the government to implement reasonable network neutrality oversight that protects consumers and content creators, and preserves the open Internet we enjoy today. We need the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

Verrone: We Need Clear Net Neutrality Rules

In testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Patric Verrone of the Writers Guild of America West said that the recent vertical integration and consolidation of power in the movie industry has left independent writers and producers with few to no options.

“The axiom in Hollywood is that ‘content is king’ but those who control access to the king, control the kingdom,” Verrone told senators. “That control is in the hands of neither the consumer nor the content creators, but the distributors.”

Neutrality Means Content is King

The Internet now faces a similar threat – a point that was made very clear to Verrone during the recent writers strike. “When traditional media is in the hands of the same corporations that employ you, it’s hard to get your message out. We had four thousand attend rallies that got less — and later — coverage on the local news than a dog wedding.”

To maintain contact with one another, guild members used the Internet – creating protest sites and viral videos that got their message across to millions. Through these “the public saw the crucial role writers play in media creation,” Verrone said.

“The policy decision that triggered the consolidation of old media has not yet been made for new media,” Verrone concluded. “In an industry filled with oxymorons from jumbo shrimp to Hollywood accounting, we must win the fight for neutrality.”

Neutrality Will Restore Innovation and Creativity

Bateman: Net Neutrality Would Ensure a Level Playing Field

According to actor and producer Justine Bateman, the demise of this creativity in Hollywood was directly proportional to the increase in consolidation of the industry.

“In entertainment, I believe we are on the verge of a creative renaissance,” Bateman told senators. “The Internet is the new grid upon which this renaissance can rest, because unfortunately the business grid of TV and film today cannot support that.”

Bateman, who is known to many as Alex P. Keaton’s kid sister Mallory in the 1980s sit-com Family Ties, said, “Net Neutrality will allow for we creators to continue owning and controlling our content … with this innovation comes competition. Net Neutrality would insure a level playing field for that.”

“We need to establish clear Net Neutrality rules to ensure that the Internet remains a level playing field for all. We dethrone the gatekeepers and once more make content king,” Verrone added.

“The Internet Freedom and Preservation Act ensures that future, and we support it.”

Vuze, maker of a popular P2P video distribution application, released a preliminary report that sheds light on ISPs’ prevalent practice of throttling communication between users.

Last fall, the Associated Press exposed Comcast for cutting off access to legal file-sharing programs. In response to petitions filed by Free Press and Vuze, the Federal Communications Commission has launched an ongoing investigation, which has included public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities.

Vuze also launched its own investigation, creating a software plug-in to track network interruptions from reset messages. The rate of interruptions was so alarming, Vuze said it suggested that “network management practices that ‘throttle’ internet traffic are widespread.”

The company is calling on the public to install the Vuze Plug-In to help expose ISPs’ covert scheme to restrict the free flow of Internet traffic.

By Sen. John Kerry

This may be the only place I don’t feel the need to play up the importance of tomorrow’s Commerce Committee hearing on Net Neutrality.

When I’ve talked to other people – and when I post on other blogs – about this hearing, I always try to grab people’s attention and tell them that, even with the primary tomorrow, we need to keep our eyes on the ball when it comes to Net Neutrality and the future of the Internet.

Guest Blog Post by Sen. John Kerry Join the debate

I know I don’t have to tell all of you at SavetheInternet.com about that.

I know you realize the importance of the government setting the rules so that some traffic is not discriminated against in relation to other traffic. I know you have followed some of the revelations of some activities of the telecom companies that have gone against their previous promises (Comcast’s actions related to BitTorrent got the most attention, but they are far from alone). I know you feel deeply – as I do – how vital this is to our future.

Because – bottom line – our economic and political future is tied up in a free and open Internet, available to all Americans. That involves making sure the content of the Internet flows freely, and it involves expanding broadband to the urban and rural areas that are underserved with our current infrastructure.

In Massachusetts, we have some of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, and we have broad swaths of Western Massachusetts that still have nothing but dial-up service. We have pockets of our largest cities without reliable broadband coverage. This is unacceptable and a danger to our nation’s future prosperity.

We need to set the rules of the road so that it doesn’t take overwhelming public pressure to get movement from corporations on network management issues. We need to give the investment and telecommunications industries clarity on what they can expect going forward.

I’ve seen compelling testimony that Net Neutrality, for example, would have a minimal effect on investment in infrastructure improvements and expansion. There is simply no reason for us to delay any longer in this.

I understand that clogged traffic due to high volume can be a problem – another reason to enact policies to expand infrastructure, by the way – but discriminating against content is not an acceptable network management practice.

You know, some of you may not agree with me on this, but I don’t even really blame the corporations on this. Congress and the federal government must lead the way and set the rules of the game.

And, like I said, I know that you realize the importance of all of this. When I came here last year before one of our hearings and asked for your input, I got some of the best feedback I’ve gotten on any issue.

So, I ask again: what would you like to see discussed in this hearing? And I’ll check back after the hearing to get your impressions on what transpired.

Thanks, John Kerry

People have been incensed by Comcast’s practice of blocking and discriminating online, so it was no surprise that more than 600 people showed up at Dinkelspiel Auditorium to discuss the future of the Internet. All five FCC commissioners were on hand to listen to expert witnesses and members of the public.

Here are their opening statements:

• Copps statement
• Adelstein statement
• Tate statement
• McDowell statement

Not one person on the expert panels, made up of scholars, network engineers, lawyers, and consumer advocates, defended Comcast’s misdeeds. While some speakers believed that Internet providers should be allowed to “manage” Web traffic, the vast majority opposed any blocking of consumer choice or legal content because it could crush innovation, competition and free speech.

A few highlights:

• Ben Scott Statement: “This hearing is a pivotal moment in the short history of Internet policymaking.”
• Robert Topolski Statement: Part One, Part Two.
• Harold Feld Statement: “There is a time to speak, and a time to keep silent. With respect, the time has come for the FCC to speak.”
• Barbara Van Schewick Statement: “Disclosure alone is not enough.”
• Jason Devitt, CEO Skydeck Statement: “If this were a Dickens novel, then I would be the Ghost of Internet Future.”

Hundreds of people also turned out to make their voices heard. It was a diverse crowd that came to talk about the importance of an open Internet. People from all walks of life, political affiliations and industries called on the FCC to protect free speech, civil rights, journalism, small business, educational opportunity and more.

In the two hours of public testimony, every single comment supported Net Neutrality and an open Internet. And every comment made it clear that the time for the FCC to act is now.

George Cammarota, an electrical engineer from San Jose, spoke to the panel about the need to safeguard democracy. “If any entity for its own private interest is allowed to limit or otherwise interfere with the free flow of information based solely on the source, destination or content of that information,” he said, “then our freedom of speech is violated and our democracy is placed in extreme jeopardy.”

L. Peter Deutsch, a self-employed composer, retaliated against Comcast’s ploy to write its own “bill of rights.”

“Comcast actions to date have shown that they can’t be trusted to ‘self regulate,’ ” Deutsch said. “Allowing the big carriers rather than consumers and public interest advocates, to take the lead in codifying a ‘bill of rights’ for Internet users would be like letting King George’s cabinet take the lead in writing the U.S. Constitution.”

Video of the public testimony, and the rest of the hearing, is available here: http://www.vontv.net/events/080417. For a taste of some of the video recorded testimony, see ColorOfChange.org’s video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ymCR3DDizw.

You can also listen to the audio archive at the FCC Web site: http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio.

On the one hand they’re snubbing a debate over openness and the Internet — refusing to take part in yesterday’s FCC public hearing. On the other, they’ve announced plans to open an industry-wide conversation to craft a “bill of rights” for ISPs, Internet companies and users.

The latter, a Comcast collaboration with Internet traffic managing company Pando Networks, received mixed reviews earlier this week when the cable company rolled it before the media.

I trashed it. And now my initial concerns seem justified.

The Right to Special Treatment

For just as the public hearings were getting underway in Stanford, Robert Levitan, Pando chief executive, told the New York Times that “he hoped Comcast might program its network to give preference to applications like the one his company makes.”

Levitan’s admission exposes the true motives behind industry efforts to craft a “bill of rights:” to lay the ground for an Internet rife with discriminatory deals and preferential treatment.

“The company appears to want to use the network management issues raised by Comcast to seek a deal that provides them preferential distribution over the Internet,” Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, said in a statement.

“It is exactly why technology companies, innovators, and millions of consumers have argued that the marketplace is not working properly and have asked the FCC provide basic rules of the road to protect against such behavior.”

The Right to Ignore the Rules

The industry’s carefully orchestrated announcements of initiatives to self-regulate are not the magic of the free market at work, Free Press policy director Ben Scott testified yesterday. “It is the threat of regulatory intervention.”

Without that threat — and an agency willing to act on behalf of the public interest — we’d have already sacrificed several basic Internet freedoms to the whims of Pando and Comcast.

“Comcast actions to date have shown that they can’t be trusted to ’self regulate,’” L. Peter Deutsch, a pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center computer scientist, told the FCC. “Allowing the big carriers rather than consumers and public interest advocates, to take the lead in codifying a ‘bill of rights’ for Internet users would be like letting King George’s cabinet take the lead in writing the U.S. Constitution.”

Comcast had hoped that we would all interpret the “bill of rights” as a genuine — to conclude that public hearings and FCC oversight were not needed to keep the Internet open for everyone.

The Right to Undermine the Internet

The Comcast message, in case you’ve missed it, sounds like this: “The free market can solve its own problems and deliver to end users the Internet experience that they desire. Trust us.”

“A tiger has a nature, and that nature is not one you trust with your child,” Professor Larry Lessig said during yesterday’s Stanford hearing. “A company has a nature. It’s nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its share holders.”

According to Lessig, that one essential truth is about as much trust that the public needs to extend to public corporations. It’s understood that they will behave in this way, and nothing is wrong with that.

Public policy, on the other hand, is designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that serve the public interest.

According to Lessig: “We set public policy to create the incentives for them to pick the right business models.”

In a perfect scenario we also set public policy to foster more a productive and economically beneficial marketplace for all involved. Net Neutrality is such a policy.

This hearing is a pivotal moment in the short history of Internet policymaking.

There are two competing visions for the future of the Internet — open versus closed. Will we embrace the openness that has shaped the Internet to the present day? Or will we permit network owners to move to the closed systems of content control we have had with cable television and broadcasting?

It is not hyperbole to say that few choices in the history of the FCC carry as much weight as this one does.

Let’s be clear: Openness does not mean an end to all network management. It does not mean every bit should be treated exactly alike on the Internet. Openness does not stop us from protecting children or copyright or security on the Internet.

Openness simply means that Internet policy should promote free speech and commerce in the online marketplace. Openness means faithfully guarding against interference from the cable and telephone companies who have the power to become gatekeepers between consumers and producers of Internet content.

The Comcast case is a bellwether that will guide our communications system for a generation. That is why it has been the focus of so much money, influence and attention. It is not ordinary.

The Commission adopted its 2005 Policy Statement to stand in place of long-established and successful nondiscrimination provisions in the Communications Act. Many of us feared then that handing over the legacy of an open communications systems that has served us so well to such a weak guardian was a dangerous business. Today we are testing the mettle of that guardian.

This history of deregulation has led us to a bright red line of basic consumer protection — beyond which we should not stray. We see the clash between open vs. closed most famously in the Net Neutrality debate — but it is also in merger proceedings, spectrum auctions, wireless policy, white spaces, text messaging — and now, network management. I’m pleased to point out that several key decisions have leaned toward openness, rather than against it. Throughout, the network owners have asserted their right to create a closed Internet.

So what plot line in this story brings us to Stanford? Was it Silicon Valley finally organizing its corporate might to challenge the telephone and cable companies in a battle of the titans?

Nope. It was a barber shop quartet. Robb Topolski began the testing that ultimately exposed Comcast’s interference with peer-to-peer software because he couldn’t share with his friends his favorite recordings of early 20th century barber shop tunes. Comcast first denied blocking, then acknowledged it, then directly challenged the legitimacy of the Policy Statement, and finally reversed itself and promised to stop in the future.

Robb has proven why this debate isn’t about Google, AT&T or Comcast. It’s about every consumer wanting to seek or share information on the Internet.

But few of us are even capable of doing what Robb did. Fewer still will witness their personal conflict with the cable company become first tier business for a federal agency. Yet the pressure of public scrutiny and regulatory oversight was highly effective — triggering industry collaboration previously deemed impossible. But that doesn’t mean the FCC can pack up and go home.

A cursory glance at the record makes that clear. The response has been extraordinary precisely because it is a bellwether, a one-off chance to pass or fail a signal test. The side deals and announcements of self-regulation are not the magic of the market at work. It is the magical threat of regulatory intervention.

If the agency doesn’t act decisively, it will not have sent the correct signals to the market. Violations are almost certain to recur when the dust settles.

From a consumer perspective, Net Neutrality, or openness on the Internet, is a user experience. That’s what is at risk here. In turn, that user experience depends on preserving the seedbed for emerging technologies, new ideas and the latest invention. The test case of Comcast-BitTorrent will shape the future of investment in innovation.

It will determine whether entrepreneurs choose to introduce their ideas in our markets or others. It will determine whether consumers get access to the new services, devices and content that this environment breeds — or whether they will never have a chance to exist. These are the stakes of this debate.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not extend the olive branch to the cable industry. In my view, cable Internet service providers have a legitimate issue with network congestion — in part because they have not yet upgraded their networks for the future of broadband. It will only get worse if we do not acknowledge and address it.

There are many other legitimate ways for network providers to handle capacity problems together with consumers and innovators. Application blocking simply isn’t one of them. Meanwhile, consumers pay for all-you-can-eat broadband that is too limited and a specific menu of cable TV that is too broad. As consumer demand for bandwidth increases, the cable industry will shift capacity to high-speed Internet services.

Consumers are relying on the Commission to set a baseline standard to protect openness on the Internet. A duopoly market of access providers will not discipline itself. Nor can we expect that fans of barber shop quartets will always be the white knights that ride to the rescue. This is a clear moment for the FCC to act. The future of the Internet for everyone depends on it.

For more information, visit www.savetheinternet.com/=stanford

I commend the Commission for holding these hearings throughout the country and for the leadership of Commissioners Copps and Adelstein who have done so much to take the Commission to communities throughout the country where dozens of media ownership public hearings have been held. These hearings have now become commonplace for the Commission and there are direct discussions with citizens who ultimately will be affected by the decisions they make.

Rep. Anna Eshoo

Net Neutrality and open access both embrace the value of openness which users of networks have enjoyed for years until recently.

Openness of the Internet has actually been its hallmark since it was created – the ability of any person anywhere in the world to reach out and access any content that someone else has made available on the Web. Openness also permitted consumers to connect the phone of their choice to the old telephone network.

The openness of the Internet revolutionized business, it changed our economy, and it has transformed our everyday lives.

Even with all the rapid change we’ve seen in the development of the Internet, one thing hasn’t changed – most Americans have little choice over how they can get onto the Net. 98% of Americans have only their Bell or cable company as choices for broadband access.

The failure of competition for high-speed broadband access permits broadband operators to take advantage of this chokepoint and dictate what content will be available to whom, and at what speeds.

They want to control which sites consumers will be able to download music from, where they will be able to watch live video and which blogs will have full access to the best service. This threatens the very existence of today’s Internet. That’s why I believe that Net Neutrality legislation should be enacted.

I applauded the Commission’s decision to mandate certain open access provisions for the C Block in the 700 MHz Auction which was won by Verizon. But the C Block represents only the smallest sliver of our public airwaves with this mandate. The F.C.C. should consider applying open access provisions on spectrum currently dedicated to mobile services.

The Congress has granted the F.C.C. expansive authority which it has used sparingly to promote openness. The Commission should closely examine network management practices. There are reasonable needs today relative to managing the network to address congestion caused by insufficient bandwidth. But such intercession into a user’s access to the Internet should not result in the outright blocking of content or applications that do not harm the network.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on how we can move forward to get more Americans connected through an open network. Please post your comments, thoughts, recommendations, and plans to improve broadband in America.

Today’s debate is important because the value of sharing information taps into a deep human desire to communicate with one another. I look forward to the important outcomes of this hearing which will benefit my constituents and all throughout our country.