IP: GETTING A LOCK ON BROADBAND

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com


GETTING A LOCK ON BROADBAND

Author Jeffery Benner warns that the Federal Communications Commission is
quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of
massive corporations. In recent months the FCC has ruled that cable
companies do not have to open their networks to competing Internet service
providers, or ISPs, and a proposal to extend the same exemption to DSL
service is pending. If approved, the proposal will allow local phone
companies, now down to four "Baby Bells," to deny other DSL providers access
to local phone networks. The trend profoundly concerns consumer advocates
and some Internet policy experts, who fear that media conglomerates will use
their control over broadband pipes to restrict access to content,
information, or technologies that compete with their own content or
otherwise threaten their interests. "The path the FCC is currently on will
change the Internet that you know," said Cheryl Leanza of the Media Access
Project (MAP), a public interest telecommunications law firm. "Currently,
rules prevent phone companies from controlling content in any way. There is
no content protection for cable, and the FCC has proposed to take away the
protections on content discrimination for DSL. The impact will be
breathtaking."

[SOURCE: Salon, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Benner]
<http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/06/07/broadband/print.html>


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