Salon Technology | Hands off whose Net?

July 19, 1999 | Looking for evidence that Internet access is fast becoming the biggest hot-button issue in the ever-combative telecommunications industry? Turn on your TV. A slick new ad campaign running in San Francisco and parts of South Florida -- and likely to spread elsewhere -- is all the proof you need. When the sound bites start coming at you during prime time, you know that big money and big special interests are clashing.

Sponsored by a self-described "coalition of Net users" called "Hands Off the Internet," the ads feature happy consumers sitting in front of their computers while an ominous voice-over warns that corporations such as GTE are "asking the government to slow competition down." The ads themselves don't offer many clues about the actual issues, but a look at the Hands Off The Internet Web site puts the group's agenda into clearer focus.

The coalition of Net users turns out to be an oddball assortment of cable companies, Net advertising concerns and a string of special interest groups, such as the Small Business Survival Committee and Net.Action, an advocacy group most known for its opposition to Microsoft. Uniting all the groups is the belief that the Internet will flourish best if the government leaves it alone.

"The Internet's phenomenal growth stems from the ability of entrepreneurs to expand consumer choices and opportunities without worrying about government regulation," reads the Web site. "Tell the government to get its hands off the Internet!"

The government regulation that Hands Off The Internet fears most would force cable franchise operators to let competing Internet service providers use their cable broadband networks. AT&T, which one critic says is providing the bulk of the funding for the campaign, has already fallen victim to this issue: AT&T owns the TCI cable company, and on June 4 was ordered by a federal judge in Portland, Ore., to open up access to its broadband cable network to competing Internet service providers.

The Portland decision was hailed as a victory by consumer activists who believe the government has a duty to ensure that access to the cable broadband network isn't monopolized by any particular industry segment. According to Jay Schwartzman, president of Media Access -- a public interest law firm that focuses on how First Amendment issues affect electronic media -- the "slowing competition down" angle is actually a smoke screen for cable companies who want to enjoy the local monopolies that they have built up over the years. Schwartzman, a participant in another pro-regulation coalition calling itself No Gatekeepers, says that vital free speech issues are involved with ensuring "open access" to the cable broadband network.

Members of the Hands Off The Internet coalition, however, see groups like No Gatekeepers as fronts for AOL, GTE and the regional Bell telephone companies -- companies that they say dragged their feet upgrading their systems and now want a piece of somebody else's network.

"AOL and GTE and others have frankly been misleading," says Hands Off The Internet president Chris Wolf, a lawyer who specializes in Internet legal issues. "The people who are advocating government intervention with respect to broadband access have been misleading consumers with the suggestion that this will give consumers more choices. But they will have no choices. If the government focuses on cable as the preferred means of access and requires cable companies to carry ISPs at their will, consumers will lose in the end, because ISPs will have no incentive to look for different ways to provide high-speed access."

"Internet access is the most wildly competitive industry in the country right now," says Hands Off The Internet executive director Peter Arnold, listing DSL, satellite and wireless technologies as alternatives to cable.

But Schwartzman believes that cable will eventually provide most people with their Internet access -- and if open access to the network isn't ensured, he believes the cable companies will have too much control over the entryway to the Net.

"It's so easy to pass this off as a business-page story about a fight between a bunch of big companies," says Schwartzman. "But what they are fighting about is something that citizens and consumers have a huge, huge stake in."
salon.com | July 19, 1999

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About the writer
Andrew Leonard is a senior correspondent for Salon Technology.

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