Bolster Internet capacity so ISPs have no excuse for discriminating against content

Tech visionary Vint Cerf described the secret of the Internet’s success simply as “Innovation without permission.”

Because nobody waited for permission a democratically driven online universe today impacts nearly every aspect of our lives.

The Internet revolution has relied on a simple principle: The Internet itself doesn’t pick winners; people do. That meant that anyone with a terrific idea — from pets.com to Facebook — has a fair shot at success.

The principle that Internet service providers must not discriminate based on content is known as “net neutrality.”

For the most part, this is how it’s happened thus far. However, there are troubling signs that we may be headed in a different direction — one in which Internet service providers offer consumers a simpler but less satisfying maxim: “Trust us.”

There are those who dismiss net neutrality as “a problem seeking a solution.” But the reality is that, several times over the past year, service providers have already discriminated based on the content they were being asked to carry.   “Trust us” has given way to “Trust us — it won’t happen again.”

The disrupted content has included politically charged lyrics during a live broadcast of a Pearl Jam concert and a political text messaging campaign for reproductive rights — precisely the kind of free expression that we must protect if the Internet is to remain an open forum for debate. Net neutrality skeptics should take note: The solution has clearly found its problem.

More ominously, telecoms are talking of dividing the Internet into a premium “super highway” in which established content providers pay extra to deliver faster service and the smaller innovators who grew into the Googles and Amazons of today are left struggling to compete.    

It’s the wrong policy, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time — and it’s no surprise that people like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are warning that he’d have struggled to launch his business if he had to negotiate a deal with the Bells. The founders of Google, eBay, Yahoo and many other Internet success stories have said the same thing: Don’t let the Internet become a force for the status quo.

The innovators of yesterday are warning us not to create an Internet where service providers pre-pick winners and discourage the innovators of tomorrow.

The FCC is currently engaging in hearings across the country to decide what rules should apply. Today the FCC uses four principles of net neutrality to protect consumers. The principles entitle consumers to access lawful Internet content, a right to run applications of their choice, a right to connect with any legal device that doesn’t harm the network, and competition among service providers.

These protections are essential — but they don’t cover the threats I’ve mentioned above. That’s why we need a fifth core tenet of net neutrality: the principle of non-discrimination.

We need to make it clear that we will not tolerate discrimination by Internet service providers who decide that some content is more important than others or block legal content that it objects to. What travels on the Internet should be a decision for consumers and sometimes lawmakers — not telecom CEOs.

People developing Internet technology need to know that their creations will not be blocked or marginalized.

Trust is not enough. As FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has said, “History shows that when somebody has the ability to control technology, and also has a business incentive to do so, they’re going to try.”

That’s why we also need to ensure that the FCC has the authority to enforce the principles of net neutrality. The current lines of jurisdiction aren’t sufficiently clear.

As Lawrence Lessig testified, Internet service providers shouldn’t have any more control over how you use the Internet than electric companies have over what appliances you plug into your wall. In other words, they control the capacity but not the specific content.

Unfortunately, when it comes to managing network capacity, the telecom companies are responding to a real problem. Skyrocketing Internet traffic is straining capacity and forcing them to make difficult decisions about how best to manage their networks. But the answer to this problem is not to ration access to the engine of our economic growth or to create a “first-class” section for one of the great democratizing forces of our age. The answer is to obliterate the argument all together by building additional capacity.

More than four years ago, President Bush promised a national broadband plan would be in place by 2007. And while we stood by and waited for the free market to spring into action, the U.S. dropped from 4th to 15th in its global broadband ranking.

We need to make broadband infrastructure a priority in this country. And we need a national plan in place to bring broadband access to every American household.  Meanwhile, proposals put forward by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in the Senate and by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) in the House represent common sense approaches to providing the FCC with the clear-cut authority to enforce network neutrality principles.

This is a problem that Congress can solve. The future of the Internet, not to mention the next Google, depend on our getting this right.

Kerry is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.