PPT Slide
Posted on Mon, Dec. 15, 2003
Battle to control Internet threatens open access By Michael J. Copps
A new battle is brewing at the Federal Communications Commission. It's about the future of the Internet. Entrenched interests are threatening open consumer access to the Net and stifling innovation and competition in the process.
The Internet was designed to defeat government or business control and to thwart discrimination against users, ideas or technologies. Intelligence and control were consciously placed at the ends of a non-discriminatory network. Anyone could access the Internet, with any kind of computer, for any type of application, and read or say pretty much what they wanted.
This Internet may be dying. At the behest of powerful interests, the FCC is buying into a warped vision that open networks should be replaced by closed networks and that the FCC should excuse broadband providers from longstanding non-discrimination requirements.