US Senate Votes Down Anti-Net Neutrality Bill

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Net Neutrality is the idea that your Internet should work like the highways: you can drive where you want, when you want, how far you want, and you shouldn't be charged more money to drive at, say, 65 miles an hour than at 55.

In the same way, net neutrality says you should be able to visit any legal website you want whenever you want. And one site shouldn't cost more to visit than another. Big telecommunications companies which carry broadband, like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, own and operate the wires that bring the Internet into your home or business and also provide content. These companies want to be able to charge "tiered fees" for sites that use a lot of data, for instance, sites that stream movies or download music. They also want to be able to slow down access speeds at will, in order to manage traffic -- they say this would ensure quality of service, keeping the lanes "open", so to speak.

Free Press, a national media reform group, says that killing Net Neutrality would have stifled the innovation that's made the Internet a disruptive and lucrative economic machine. It would be too easy to throttle off sites that offer services, like Skype, that compete with the big telcos' offerings. It would also make it harder for small businesses and individuals to get to sites that cost more, leaving access in the hands of those with deeper pockets. Craig Aaron, president of Free Press said he was "glad the Senate didn't listen to the unfounded fears that were being pushed by the opponents of Net Neutrality, claiming...some new kind of government gatekeeper was going to be created." Net Neutrality, he says, prevents the big telcos from becoming the gatekeepers

Texas Representative Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, was the primary sponsor of the defeated bill, which she said would protect Internet users from excessive government interference.

Free Press's Craig Aaron cautioned that the fight to protect Net Neutrality was far from over, despite today's vote. Verizon has filed a lawsuit which claims that the FCC has no authority to regulate the Internet. Aaron expects other lawsuits regarding both the spirit and the letter of Internet regulations to follow.