VoIP You

Things are beginning to come to a head in the debate over net neutrality. This week will see the topic take center stage in multiple corridors of Congress. As votes are put to the floor, the way that we access information, communicate, and do business could be greatly affected.

On Internetnews.com, Roy Mark took an in depth view at the upcoming proceedings and where those on opposite sides of the aisle stand:

“As one committee prepares to vote on a telecom reform bill that Democrats contend lacks effective network neutrality protections, another panel opens hearings on the antitrust implications of just such a scenario.”

As with most things these days, the majority of democrats and republicans can’t quite see eye-to-eye on the issue. Mark breaks down the two opposing views as such:

“Verizon and AT&T have publicly stated they intend to charge content providers different fees based on bandwidth consumption to access consumers. Republicans see little problem with this tiered access approach and leave enforcement of network neutrality to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)…Democrats want the FCC's network neutrality principles, which have no force of law, turned into statutory law.”

Jeff Pulver also covered the frenzied DC activity and the internal duel that could arise between the Judiciary Committee and the Commerce Committee:

“It looks like a little jurisdictional turf war might be building between the Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee…it does look like the House Committees are…feeling out what their respective roles will be, as well as the respective roles of the FTC and FCC, in the communications future.”

The fate of the Internet as we know it will most likely be decided by a group of politicians and corporate behemoths who can say all they want to about the rights of consumers, but who are ultimately driven by money. However, there is still time to let the folks on the Hill know how we commoners feel about that situation. The Pulver Contest to Save the Net is still going, and you do have a couple of days left to sign the Post-Disaster Communications Petition that Pulver and Tom Evslin developed. If you still feel as though you don’t know enough about the questions at hand, you can check out the work of Ken Camp to get a thorough breakdown of regulatory issues.