Saving the Internet

[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA)]
[Commentary] Not all broadband providers are building out fiber to the home or fiber to the neighborhood with reprovisioned terminals, and until such connections are available everywhere an interim solution is needed. A simple rule would assure that broadband providers do not disadvantage unaffiliated content while also giving them the program quality assurances they need to launch their services. This result is achieved through clear prohibitions on broadband providers: (1) blocking, interfering with or impairing the ability of their customers to access lawful content, applications and services on the Internet or attaching their choice of devices to the network and (2) favoring themselves or their affiliates in the allocation, use or quality of Internet-access service. A broadband provider could prioritize a category of its own bits, such as video, if it also prioritized all video bits traveling over its pipe at no cost to other service providers so that consumers have a true choice between the broadband provider’s video service and competing video services. Broadband providers could take reasonable and nondiscriminatory steps to manage the network for technical efficiency, protect network security and prevent illegal activity. This simple, straightforward approach would preserve consumer choice and the openness that is the hallmark of the Internet by preventing broadband providers from erecting tollbooths on the network, while assuring that they can offer a robust, reliable and competitive video programming service. These guarantees would facilitate innovative new Internet-based products and services by both broadband providers and providers at the edge of the network without creating a multi-track Internet.
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