House Rejects Net Neutrality Legislation HR 5252

By Alexander Grundner | June 11th, 2006 (0) Comments

Here’s a story that didn’t get much press last Thursday evening that very well should have. The U.S. House overwhelmingly rejected (269-152) the passage of HR 5252 Net Neutrality legislation. HR 5252 [PDF] would have created federal regulations forbidding broadband providers from creating tiered service networks and throttling/degrading data from any website or service. But more importantly, HR 5252 would have preserved the “interconnected nature of the Internet and consumer empowerment and choice….” Unfortunately, the House Republican leadership sold us out on this one with a grand total of 211 votes opposing (58 opposing from the Democrats)!

Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, gave the following response:

It is a shame that the House turned its back on the open essence of the Internet. Instead, the House ignored the arguments of consumers, technology companies and interest groups from across the political spectrum and voted to allow the telephone and cable companies to discriminate by controlling the content that will flow over the network and to assess whatever additional fees the telephone and cable companies want to charge on top of normal access rates.

The House has rushed to pass HR 5252 at the urging of the telephone and cable companies, who feared the growing public support for an enforceable net neutrality law. With the defeat of the Markey amendment, the House bill will have no meaningful protections for consumers or service providers against the discriminatory practices that the telephone and cable companies will employ to favor their own content and services. Today’s Internet, which gives consumers control over what applications, services and content they want to access, will be replaced by an Internet that looks like a cable system — where network providers determine who gets on and at what price.

However, there still might be something we can do. Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge added:

We hope that those who support a free and open Internet will regroup and make certain the Senate knows how important this is. This means not only those of us here in D.C., but everyone, everywhere. To many politicians, an abstract email petition, even if has 800,000 names, has no meaning. But if their town meetings back home are attended by people who don’t want to give up the Internet, and if local business people bring up the topic during meetings and events, the message will start to get through.

Follow @eHomeUpgrade