For anyone with the faintest interest in technology policy, the past month has been nothing if not lively.

That's because one month ago, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, announced his intention to introduce a notice of proposed rule-making (NPRM) that would establish a tougher and more explicit stance in favor of Net neutrality at the commission.

The response has been overwhelming. Dozens of lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have signed their names to letters voicing opposition to the proceeding, which is almost categorically opposed by Internet service providers.

"I've never, ever seen this much noise this soon in a proceeding," Art Brodsky, a spokesman for the pro-Net neutrality group Public Knowledge, told InternetNews.com. "It's like a full-fledged shock and awe thing."

Web companies, who also have plenty of lawmakers on their side, as well as the president, have countered with a full-throated support of the chairman's proposal, and plenty of advocacy groups such as Brodsky's have leapt into the fray.

Both sides have accused each other of dissembling and distorting the facts, and amid all the crosstalk, it can be easy to lose the thread of the argument.

In that light, we thought it would be instructive to give the opposing views equal time, so InternetNews.com canvassed a broad cross section of participants in the debate to get their thoughts leading up to Thursday's FCC vote.

Innovation: Salvation or the death of?

Are Net neutrality rules critical to preserving innovation in online apps and services -- work done at the "edge of the network" -- or will the uncertainty over new rules deter ISPs from developing new network management techniques that are needed to handle the exponential increase in data usage?

• "Network providers should have the opportunity to innovate in ways that will offer customers new services and provide the revenues necessary to recover the enormous costs of offering these services and maintaining networks. More regulation limits the number of business models companies can use to recover the costs for building and upgrading infrastructure." -- AT&T spokesman

• "The Internet has thrived as an open platform, where creators of new services and content are free to 'innovate without permission,' and where consumers -- not broadband companies -- choose winners and losers. This openness is the reason why Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Google and countless other innovative companies have been able to succeed. It is essential that this open environment be protected." -- Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel, Google

• "I wouldn't tell a transportation planner that is experiencing congestion on the highway that the only tool he has at his disposal is to build more lanes." -- Aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas, Ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee

Hutchison introduced an amendment to an Interior Department appropriations bill to block the FCC from expending funds to develop and enforce new regulations. After a meeting between her staff and the chairman's, she agreed to not push the amendment to a vote, but her aide said that she is considering using "all tools at her disposal" to intervene against the commission if the rules announced later this week appear to overreach.

• "We know how Internet innovation is affected by effective net Neutrality rules because these are the rules which were in existence from the time the Internet was created. In the absence of these rules, innovation would undoubtedly occur, but only the innovations that were compatible with the practices of a handful of companies which control access to the Internet. Any truly disruptive service or technology would be 'strangled in its crib' and the astounding innovation which has defined the development of the Internet to-date would cease to exist." -- Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.)

Eshoo is a co-sponsor of the Internet Freedom and Preservation Act, which would write non-discrimination rules into law. Eshoo is one of seven Democrats to have attached their names to the bill.

• "The greatest impact of strong Net neutrality rules will be to spur innovation at the edge -- in the related markets for Web services, applications and content. ... Since the wired world is already net neutral in practice, I believe the greatest gains for innovation and consumer welfare by far will flow from complete consumer choice to attach any device, run any application, and access any web content over mobile broadband networks." -- Michael Calabrese, vice president, New America Foundation

• "It is both incorrect and shortsighted to believe that innovation can occur only at the edges and not the core of the networks that comprise the Internet." -- Barbara Esbin, senior fellow, Progress and Freedom Foundation

• "If you have rules that say basically 'reasonableness' or 'proper' what you essentially do is if [network providers] don't know what those mean, come talk to us. Talking to the FCC is not exactly a real-time event. If that does happen, people are going to be very hesitant about innovating. Why should I take the chance to innovate when I have to go hire lawyers to go down to the FCC? It's going to be an era where anyone who's trying to do something interesting to solve a problem is going to have to spend a lot of time in Washington. That slows you down to a crawl. You're just going to say 'screw it.'" -- David Farber, professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and former chief technologist at the FCC

• "Did the Web come from the phone companies? With all due respect to the network engineers ... when you talk about innovation not a lot of it came from the phone companies." -- Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge

Page 2: Nightmare scenarios and questionable motivations

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