Op Ed: Kiss `Neutral Net` Good-Bye,
Then Open Wallet-Wide,
For Pay-Per-Page

Consumer agencies dissect demands, defy Web-Net pirates.

Creators of what became the Internet operated in the pre-PC era on massive computers. What started with a dozen or so researchers has grown to 30 million users Photo courtesy: freedommag.org

(SALEM) - YOU are about to be robbed of your rights for freedom of speech and choice of sources on the World Wide Web --the Internet.

`Your" Congress is conforming public-service regulation to overwhelming, excessive demands by corporations to `fix something that ain`t broke".

Propagandizing costs to shape Senate consideration already exceed what fast access via coax-cable would run for every American household.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden Thursday forced the full Senate to reconsider threatening too-rapid action with a technical `hold" preventing any vote until properly cleared. (Fully reported rapidly in Salem-News as it happened.)

Here`s what our working Senator stated on the Senate floor: `The major telecommunications legislation reported today by the Senate Commerce Committee is badly flawed."

He then declared that: `The bill makes a number of major changes in the country`s telecommunications law but there is one provision that is nothing more than a license to discriminate." `Without a clear policy preserving the neutrality of the Internet and without tough sanctions against those who would discriminate, the Internet will be forever changed for the worse."

Wyden`s `hold" signals filibuster-intent until the issue is cleared. There are clear signs he has more Senators on his side than at first appeared to be the case; the panel vote on his demand-to-include was an 11-to-11 tie - about double what had been expected.

Twelve crucial facts are involved in this discussion within `our" Congress. Leading national consumer-protection agencies joined with an authoritative organization dedicated to `freedom of the press" to publish a probing description-evaluation/study on those key dozen determinants.

We summarize their information just-below. You can seek late developments and its consequences `for your own eyes" here: www.savetheinternet.com/=threat

That action is a now-available right you will pay for later --if this desperate bid to capture and pervert our still-free Internet occurs.

The consumer-protecting organizations are: Consumer Federation of America; Consumers Union; and Free Press. Their penetrating, study is titled: `Why Consumers Demand Internet Freedom - Network Neutrality Fact vs Fiction".

It is a full answer to propagandizing, manipulative efforts underway nationally, focused on Congress and the Senate; at costs estimated already to exceed $1 million weekly expended by a single corporation, AT&T.

Total costs- known are more than the $100 million needed to access every American home by coax-cable. THAT might well be a magnificent national educational project paying off handsomely in the coming century, exceeding even the NDEA with its billions for math, science and foreign languages, in the �50s.

Network neutrality --the clear, consequential concept shaping the Internet ever since it was invented and built by innovators and nervy entrepreneurs from simple scratch-beginnings-- guarantees the same treatment for all content from any source, across the World Wide Web.

That basic principle is what made the Internet what it is, and MUST continue to shape its future development as it re-shapes our world.

It is defended by all those responsible for the Web`s amazing development; by millions-more who have already contacted Congress in defense of the operating principle now under greedy attack by latecomers seeking to profit from `pipes" already heavily subsidized; and deserves our combined rapid support by strong communication with every elected representative serving in `our" Congress now.

Here are the twelve key-determinant facts to shape your own consideration and responsible action:

Fact 1: Network neutrality has existed since Internet was established.

Fact 2: A `tiered Internet" gives full control to network owners.

Fact 3: A `tiered Internet" undermines innovation, investment and competition.

Fact 4: A `tiered Internet" will create `fast" vs `slow" lanes, costing some users much more than others.

Fact 5: There IS `no free ride" on the Internet; operators have revenue streams to support further development now.

Fact 6: Phone companies have already received billions in public subsidies for network build-out.

Fact 7: The broadband market provides no pressure to punish anticompetitive behavior. Consumers have only two choices: Cable or DSL.

Fact 8: Consumers will pay for network infrastructure with or without `network neutrality" left in place.

Fact 9: Discrimination (via `tiered Internet") creates incentive to maintain scarcity --and force consumer use-and-"pay to play".

Fact 10: Owners already threaten business models built on discrimination and `pay-to-play".

Fact 11: COPE legislation now pending prevents FCC from any deterrence of discrimination via `pay to play."

Fact 12: Support for network neutrality continuing comes from broad, nonpartisan, `right" AND `left" commercial AND noncommercial groups joined for the first time in demanding ongoing reality shaping the World Wide Web and Internet operations.

IF it is STILL `our" Senate and `our" Congress, the final decision should surely be: `Never fix what isn`t broken!"

Let YOUR voice be heard, every word you send will kill off hundreds of those pirate-predator corporate-snatched propagandizing dollars, those pirates plan to snatch all that pelf again -- if YOU remain silent and quiescent now.