Santa Clara University

Internet Neutrality

Does the internet need to be saved or not, and from what?

Read an OP-ED article on internet neutrality by: Allen Hammond, Professor of Law, School of Law; Director, BroadBand Institute of California; Program Director, Law & Public Policy, Center for Science, Technology, and Society, Santa Clara University

On Tuesday, April 25 the Center and the Commonwealth Club/Silicon Valley hosted a panel conversation titled “Internet Neutrality.” – a recent controversy that suggest large broadband carriers may start favoring their own services, while slowing down or blocking access to competitors’ web sites and services.

The evening started with a pre-event reception for about 100 attendees outside the Recital Hall at the Performing Arts complex.  Shortly thereafter, the audience assembled to hear opening remarks by Geof Bowker, Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology and Society, and panel introductions. Panelists included Tod Cohen, Director of Government Relations, eBay; Allen Hammond, Professor of Law, Santa Clara School of Law and Director, Broadband Institute and John Sumpter, Vice-President, Pac-West.

The panel was moderated by Miguel Helft, Editorial Writer, The San Jose Mercury News

Helft quickly labeled the evening’s theme, Internet Neutrality, as the emerging flashpoint issue for the Internet. Panelists were asked to begin their comments within the context of any of the following “developments” within the last 18 months:

1)      Customers subscribing to Vonage, an internet telephony carrier,   were blocked by a small rural telephone company in a Midwestern region of the U.S because the local provider felt it was unfair for customers to bypass their service and access the internet through the Vonage system. What does this action ultimately mean for consumers?

2)      AT&T Chairman, Ed Whitaker, declared that service providers (Google, Yahoo or Vonage) should not expect to use “his pipes for free” because his company needs to make a return on investment for the capital spent to build the consumer broadband infrastructure. Are service providers getting a free ride or are they in fact paying a large sum of money every month to a telephone company for network connectivity?

3)      At a recent press conference, a fairly disparate coalition of individuals and consumer groups,  rallied behind the theme “Save the Internet.” But, does the Internet really need to be saved or not, and from what?

Addressing these issues and others related to this hotly debated topic, panelists covered a lot of ground including the possible ramifications of going to a two tiered internet – one public, free internet and a second -   private, fee-based.   Some of the audience questions explored were:

-         Will a two-tiered system inherently threaten innovation on the internet?

-         Is a carrier’s ability to provide higher bandwidth service to their paying customers any different than a mail order retailer (like L.L. Bean) signing an agreement with a transport service (like Fed Ex) to ensure special delivery of packages?

-         Is this purely an economic battle where carriers want to recover their upgrade costs from users?  

-         Will capitalism take care of the interconnection problem, or are government regulatory measures needed, much like those experienced by phone companies for the last 100 years?

To learn more about this topical issue as it relates to competitive fairness, intercarrier compensation privileges, Metcalf’s Law, affiliate vs. non-affiliate structures, exclusivity, and the “internet model” vs. the “cable TV model,” look for our streaming audio (available next week) and complete transcripts (available next month).