Stage is set in Congress as sides prepare for broadband showdown

When Congress begins work this year, it will restart a heated debate about how much lawmakers should regulate the Internet and emerging communications technologies - with some advocates saying the future of the Internet is at stake.

As Congress looks to update telecom law, at least three factions with differing visions of regulation in the Internet Age are emerging: major telecom carriers, large Internet-based companies and a host of consumer-rights advocates.

What do you think? Discuss in our broadband regulation forum.

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When Congress begins work this year, it will restart a heated debate about how much lawmakers should regulate the Internet and emerging communications technologies - with some advocates saying the future of the Internet is at stake.

As Congress looks to update telecom law, at least three factions with differing visions of regulation in the Internet Age are emerging: major telecom carriers, large Internet-based companies and a host of consumer-rights advocates.

What do you think? Discuss in our broadband regulation forum.

Perhaps the most contentious debate surrounds whether broadband providers should be obligated to allow customers to run services or go to Web sites that compete with the provider's own products.

On one side, you have a group of consumer groups and Internet companies warning that a handful of broadband providers - companies such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast - control much of the broadband bandwidth in the United States. Recent court and FCC rulings have allowed these broadband providers to cut off competing ISPs from using their networks. Backers of a so-called net neutrality law argue that these large broadband providers have increasing temptations to provide faster service for their services and partners, while blocking or slowing access to other Web-based content and services.

The debate over net neutrality gets into a lot of complicated "what-if" scenarios, but consumer advocates say if broadband providers can give their own services preferential treatment, today's open Internet will be replaced with a tiered network, with some content and services relegated to a slow-loading Internet slum.

On the other side are the large broadband providers, who say they have no intention of blocking customers from going where they want on the Web. Impeding customers would be bad for business, large broadband providers have argued.

"It is better to let the Internet work, and if there are instances [of blocking] that pop up, you deal with them," said Kerry Knott, vice president of government affairs at Comcast, speaking at a November forum. "It's a solution in search of a problem, still."

But some Internet companies - including Google, eBay and VoIP provider Vonage - say there's danger in letting the broadband providers control the flow inside broadband pipes.

"This is a huge deal," says Celia Viggo Wexler, vice president for advocacy at Common Cause, a group that pushes for accountable government. "Increasingly, if we're going to have the information we need to govern ourselves, we need access to information that is essentially free and open."

The Internet companies, Common Cause and allies such as Public Knowledge and the Consumer Federation of America are pushing a net neutrality provision to be added to any new law, thus putting legal weight behind an FCC policy goal that has been around since February 2004.

Beyond concerns about freedom of information online, these companies argue that a provider-controlled Internet would slow innovation. Groundbreaking products and services often come from independent companies on the "edge" of the network, companies that may not have the resources to negotiate deals with huge broadband providers, they say.

A second vision for communications reform - advanced by large carriers Verizon and AT&T, as well as organizations such as the conservative think tank The Progress & Freedom Foundation - would remove most existing regulations and take away much of the FCC's rule-making powers. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced a bill Dec. 15 that would overhaul the FCC's role.

An old-style set of regulations based on a telecom monopoly doesn't make sense in an era of increasing competition from VoIP providers, cable companies and others, say advocates of this deregulatory approach. Instead of creating "anticipatory" rules, the FCC should act largely as an enforcement agency, acting only when it sees competition failures and potential harm to consumers, this group says.