Companies have the right to block or slow your access to sites and services on the Web.

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Congressional panel gave companies the right to block or slow your access to sites and services on the Web.Gentlemen and Ladies,How could this have happened? Last week, a Congressional panel gave big telephoneand cable companies the right to block or slow youraccess to sites and services on the Web. Because telephone and cable companies, like AT & T andComcast, own the lines that connect you to theInternet, they can control where you go and how fastyou get there. Worse, they can block or slow youraccess to Internet-based services, likeInternet-telephone, music and video downloads, ande-mail that competes with their own offerings. The fight to preserve an open Internet is just gettingstarted! Ask Congress to prevent big telephone andcable companies from blocking or slowing your accessto Internet services offered by their competitors. The clash today is really about the next big thing,video that feeds directly over the internet to eitheryour computer or your television. Video takes up morebandwidth, and the big companies who own the lineswant to sell you their own video services instead ofletting you easily access offerings from othercompanies. If they get their way, cheap phone servicesor video downloads via the Internet may become a thingof the past. The article below from this week's SanFrancisco Chronicle summarizes the issue nicely.Take a moment to tell Congress to keep the Internetopen for everyone. Like a freeway, where any car candrive at the speed of traffic, you should be able toget what you need and go where you need to go withoutextra charges or slower service!After you take action, please think of five people whouse the Internet and forward this message to them.Every active Internet user has a strong interest inkeeping the Internet open! Encourage them to jointheir voice to yours and tell Congress that theInternet needs to serve everyone equally.Sincerely,Morgan JindrichHearUsNow.orgA project of Consumers Union1666 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 310Washington, DC 20009-1039----------------------THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (California) April 17, 2006 Monday, EDITORIALS; Pg. B4 Don't undercut Internet access THE WIDE and unbounded Internet could soon be fencedin by cable and phone firms. Higher prices and lesschoice may lie ahead under a misguided bill movingforward in Congress. A House committee dumped a plan to enforce networkneutrality, a clunky term for an important concept.The phrase stands for an original ideal of Internet --equal access and no hidden charges to climb aboard. On one level, the fight is a battleship clash betweenconsolidating telecoms, such as Verizon and AT & T, andmajor Internet services, such as Google, andMicrosoft. The standoff is over the next big thing:video direct to your TV or computer screen. But the implications reach beyond what movie to watch.The cable and phone companies, growing bigger witheach merger, want to cash in on their increasingleverage. Faster e-mail might cost more. A net-basedcompany might pay more for a faster connection tocustomers. The big service providers are howling mad at the ideaof a toll booth. Until now, they've had free accessand don't want to pay to play, as the phone and cableguys are inclined to ask. To date, the fight is goingagainst them, with a Republican-majority Housecommittee rejecting net neutrality as it draws up anew telecommunications bill. The full House and Senateare expected to consider the matter later this year. There is undue sanctimony on both sides, to be sure.The major Internet companies, many of them Fortune 500firms, are using the founding credos of theopen-to-all Internet to dodge a new bill. And thetelecoms are using new muscle to cash in on theirnetworks, not withstanding their talk of innovationand better service. It's a bottom-line game for bothsides. But down at the consumer level, the impact could bedifferent. Customers could face one set of servicesoffered by a cable or phone company -- or ahigher-priced list of alternatives from outsiders. If was part of the standard-priced bundle, wouldyou pay more for Google? It would be a two-tier world,not the even-up access that the Internet offers now.New upstarts would have a hard time cracking thelineup, while the familiar names stayed on top. In Washington, Republican legislators have balked atnet neutrality in the belief that Internet technologyis too hard to predict or regulate. Wireless service,for example, could eclipse the perceived advantagethat cable and phone companies have now in pluggingcustomers into the net. That's plausible but unlikely,given the huge investment in the nation's hard-wiredInternet network. The pending legislation went a step further in dodgingaction on open access. The Republican majority on the Energy and CommerceCommittee directed the Federal CommunicationsCommission not to pass rules on net neutrality thoughit could take up the problem on a case-by-case basis.This result is lip service to the idea of keeping thenet free and open. The Internet isn't served by layers of governmentregulation. But it shouldn't become a captive of oneindustry. Net neutrality should be a guiding principleto guarantee open use «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»Paranormal_Research - Scientific Data & Health Conspiracies Paranormal_ResearchSubscribe:... 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