TELECOMS PLAN TO RIG INTERNET TO THEIR ADVANTAGE

CHRISTOPHER STERN, WASHINGTON POST - The nation's largest telephone
companies have a new business plan, and if it comes to pass you may one
day discover that Yahoo suddenly responds much faster to your inquiries,
overriding your affinity for Google. Or that Amazon's Web site seems
sluggish compared with eBay's. The changes may sound subtle, but make no
mistake: The telecommunications companies' proposals have the potential,
within just a few years, to alter the flow of commerce and information
-- and your personal experience -- on the Internet. For the first time,
the companies that own the equipment that delivers the Internet to your
office, cubicle, den and dorm room could, for a price, give one company
priority on their networks over another.

This represents a break with the commercial meritocracy that has ruled
the Internet until now. We've come to expect that the people who own the
phone and cable lines remain "neutral," doing nothing to influence the
content on your computer screen. And may the best Web site win.

For more than a year, public interest groups, including the Consumer
Federation and Consumers Union, have been lobbying Congress and the
Federal Communications Commission to write the concept called "network
neutrality" into law and regulation. Google and Yahoo have joined their
lobbying efforts. And online retailers, Internet travel services, news
media and hundreds of other companies that do business on the Web also
have a lot at stake.

Meanwhile, on the other side, companies like AT&T, Verizon and Bell
South are lobbying just as hard, saying that they need to find new ways
to pay for the expense of building faster, better communication
networks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012100094.html