U.S. phone and cable TV companies that provide Internet access should be barred from slowing down, blocking or charging to prioritize Internet traffic flowing over their regular broadband lines, Verizon Communications and Google said in a policy statement released Monday.
But the companies left room for broadband providers to charge extra to route traffic from premium services such as remote medical monitoring and smart grid controls over dedicated networks that are separate from the public Internet.
Verizon and Google laid out their vision in a policy proposal that they hope can serve as a framework for the U.S. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission in drafting so-called “network neutrality” rules. Such rules are meant to ensure that phone and cable providers cannot favour their own services or discriminate against Internet phone calls, online video and other web services that compete with their core businesses.
Although broadband providers such as Verizon and Internet content companies such as Google are at opposite ends in the increasingly bitter debate over such rules, the two companies have been in talks for months to try to identify common ground.
Their proposal comes just days after the FCC declared an impasse in negotiations to craft an industry-wide compromise on the thorny issue. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is seeking to adopt net neutrality rules that would ensure that broadband subscribers could readily access all legal online content, applications, services and devices.
The proposal from Google and Verizon would give the FCC authority to enforce those rules for wired networks by prohibiting broadband providers from discriminating against or favouring Internet traffic. The proposal would allow the agency to impose a penalty of up to US$2 million on companies that violate the rules. Wireless carriers, which have more capacity constraints, would not be subject to the restrictions, although they would have to disclose their network management practices.
In a conference call with reporters, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said their proposal would preserve the openness of the Internet, but still give phone and cable TV companies room to experiment with “managed” services that could send video, games and other bandwidth-hungry applications over separate systems.
The FCC had no comment. But several public interest groups were quick to denounce the proposal. In a statement, Free Press Political Adviser Joel Kelsey said the plan would “transform the free and open Internet into a closed platform like cable television” and “lead to toll booths on the information superhighway.”
Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of the group Public Knowledge, added that the proposal “sacrifices the future of the mobile wireless Internet as this platform becomes more central to the lives of all Americans.”
Public interest groups were particularly disappointed with Google, which has led the push in recent years for strict net neutrality rules that would require broadband providers to give equal treatment to Internet traffic. Net neutrality supporters argue that this encompasses more than just barring phone and cable companies from blocking or degrading traffic. They also insist that broadband providers should not be able to charge extra for priority access on their systems because doing so would create a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane for online companies that can pay more and a slow lane for everyone else.
The proposal outlined by Verizon and Google, they say, violates this principle.
Verizon and other Internet access providers have said they want flexibility to manage network traffic so that high-bandwidth applications don’t hog capacity and slow down their systems. They also argue that after spending billions to upgrade their networks for broadband, they should be able to operate their systems as they see fit and earn a healthy return on their investments by offering premium services. Otherwise, they argue, they would have no incentive to build out systems.
