WASHINGTON — Harried by time constraints, contentious Democrats and dozens of
proposed amendments, the Senate Commerce Committee took a pass Thursday
afternoon on network neutrality.
After two hours of parliamentary maneuvering on the massive telecom reform
Bill, which includes a section on network neutrality, Commerce Committee
Chairman Ted Stevens delayed the showdown vote until Tuesday morning.
The legislation would establish a Consumer Internet Bill of Rights forcing
broadband providers to allow users to run the legal applications and
services of their choice.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would handle any issues of
network discrimination in handling traffic.
The bill would allow broadband providers such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast
to implement plans for a two-tiered pricing scheme for content providers
based on bandwidth consumption.
That issue is at the core of the network neutrality debate.
“We need to hold fast to what’s in the bill,” Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)
said. “The bill will not pass the House with the network neutrality language
that has been proposed.”
Democrats are expected Tuesday to push for amendments to the bill that would
force broadband providers to treat all network traffic in a
non-discriminatory manner, including pricing.
Senate Republicans are expected to defeat any efforts by Democrats to change
the network neutrality portion of the bill.
A similar effort failed
earlier this month when the U.S. House passed its version of telecom reform.
On an overwhelming vote of 269-152, House members voted to leave network
neutrality issues to the FCC.
“The founding principle of the Internet is network neutrality,” said Maine
Sen. Olympia Snowe, one of the few Republicans opposing the current language
in the legislation.
“If we do not incorporate [network neutrality] into the bill, we will
radically transform the Internet as we know it.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) complained that network neutrality should not
be a partisan issue.
“The [bill] fails to address the fundamental issue of discrimination,” she
said.
“The [Senate Consumer Internet Bill of Rights] … fails to address the core
concern of network discrimination that does not overtly block access but
instead impairs access by increasing the cost of competitive online
services,” the Consumers Union stated Wednesday in a letter to the Senate
Commerce Committee.
Internet icons Google, Microsoft, eBay and Amazon also oppose the current
network neutrality language in the Senate bill.
“We believe consumers are best served by an open access model where network
owners offer fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory wholesale rates to
others who seek to bring customers to that network,” Chris Patula, executive
vice president of public policy at EarthLink,
