The Internet is high-tech gold in the sparsely populated and isolated state of Alaska.
The technology allows Alaskans who live hundreds of miles from a University of Alaska campus to receive online instruction to become nurses, who are in short supply. It allows Eskimo tribes in rural areas to receive medical advice electronically. And it allows professors to use videoconferencing to help train early-childhood teachers.
But technology officials at the University of Alaska are discovering that users of the Internet can hit unexpected roadblocks.
Running a videoconference between the university’s Northwest campus, in Nome, and Alaskan schools is a constant struggle, says Curt Madison, director of the Center for Distance Education at Alaska’s Fairbanks campus. The university has its own videoconference service, while many schools it connects with use a service from their broadband provider, General Communications Inc. The company’s service often intermittently rejects the video feeds from Nome; images then suddenly disappear or get jumbled, says Mr. Madison.
When he complained to the company about the connection problems, officials advised the university to buy the company’s dedicated videoconference line. Mr. Madison says that option is too expensive, and, besides, he says he shouldn’t have to do so to get reliable service. Dana L. Tindall, a senior vice president of the company, offers an airline analogy: “If you don’t want to ride on coach, and you want to have a seating assignment, you have to pay a little bit more.”
Mr. Madison worries that the company’s preferential treatment of its own videoconference service “is a harbinger of what we could face, as [broadband] carriers become vendors of programming and seek competitive advantage.”
Many academic leaders share his concern. Telephone and cable companies, the officials say, could soon thwart colleges’ attempts to deliver education and collaborate on research over the Internet. They are pressing Congress to approve legislation that would force telecommunications companies to keep the broadband pipes they manage open to any kind of Web content or network application -- even those that compete with the companies’ own offerings -- and would prohibit the companies from favoring certain types of network traffic with fast-lane delivery to people’s computers.
Those principles describe what is called “net neutrality.” The term is meant to convey the idea that broadband providers should be neutral toward the content and services that flow through their networks. But there is nothing neutral about the passion the issue has ignited in the media, on blogs, and in Congress as lawmakers consider changes in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Educause, a higher-education-technology group, and Internet2, a consortium of universities developing advanced network applications, are leading academe’s call for action. Over the past several months, officials from the groups have been shuttling from their neighboring offices in downtown Washington to Capitol Hill, trying to persuade aides to senators on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee that legislation is needed to prevent telecommunications companies from restricting the Internet’s openness. The committee held a hearing on the issue in February and is expected to consider legislation this year. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the issue in May.
Meanwhile, telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress to reject the legislation. The companies recently indicated a desire to offer a new service, for those who pay a toll, that will guarantee priority and the speedy delivery of Internet content. The service is designed to help improve the online delivery of movies and television shows, which consume large amounts of network capacity.
The new revenue is needed, executives say, because their companies expect to spend billions of dollars to expand and improve network infrastructure to consumers. At the same time, the telecommunication companies have repeatedly said they will not “block or degrade” Internet sites or network applications that do not pay the toll.
But academic leaders say that faster service for some Web sites means slower and less reliable service for others, since network capacity, known as bandwidth, is limited. Dividing the Internet into fast and not-so-fast lanes of service, they say, also undermines the open, egalitarian nature of the technology.
That view is shared by powerful computer companies, like Microsoft and Google, and consumer groups, like the Consumer Federation of America and the AARP. They warn that telephone companies’ plans for preferential Internet service for certain types of data could jeopardize network innovation and consumers’ unfettered access to medical advice, campaign ads, search engines, or any other kinds of information.
‘Preserve the Internet’
Officials from Educause and Internet2 have lobbied aides to at least 24 senators, including Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican who is head of the commerce committee. Wendy Wigen, an Educause policy analyst, says she is immersed in the Internet issue, and she barely stops for a breath as she rattles off a list of reasons why legislation is important. Educause even discussed getting buttons made with the slogan “Preserve the Internet as We Know It,” she says.
“There’s no way two phone companies are going to control what’s on the Internet,” Ms. Wigen says, explaining that she cannot fathom giving AT&T and Verizon so much power.
Telecommunications companies have both a financial incentive and the means to discriminate against certain Web providers, she says.
In fact, they have already done so. Public Knowledge, a Washington advocacy group, recently documented eight cases in which network operators blocked Web sites. In one case, Madison Telephone Company LLC, of Mebane, N.C., prevented its customers from reaching the Web site of Vonage, a competitor that sells Internet-based phone service. The Federal Communications Commission intervened, and in March 2005 the telephone company paid a $15,000 fine and agreed not to block Internet-based phone services in the future.
Ms. Wigen says that she knows of no cases of companies’ discriminating against college Web sites, but that it is not out of the question. Last year a Supreme Court ruling upheld an FCC decision that operators of broadband networks are not legally bound to keep their networks open to all Internet content, services, and equipment.
Gary R. Bachula, vice president for external relations for Internet2, has joined Ms. Wigen in the cause. At the Senate commerce panel’s hearing in February, he told senators that the superfast Abilene network his organization runs for students, researchers, and professors allows for television-quality videoconferencing and may soon introduce advanced applications in telemedicine and distance learning.
“These innovations are not being developed by telephone or cable companies,” he said. “They’re being developed ... by end users. That requires an open-standards-based nondiscriminatory Internet.”
In a prepared statement to the committee, he told senators that colleges’ histories of networking innovation could be exactly that -- history -- without Congressional intervention. He listed the Internet innovations developed by graduate students or by recent college graduates: the World Wide Web, Web browsers, and the search engine. “Not one of these innovations was developed by telephone or cable companies,” he stressed.
‘Entrenched Interests’
Mr. Madison, of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, says that bandwidth is unevenly distributed, scarce, and costly in Alaska, with urban residents getting more-robust Internet service than the residents of more than 300 rural communities in the state.
Broadband carriers are pushing service to people’s homes, he says, but the best way for residents who live in isolated villages to connect to the Internet is in community learning centers. Many rural residents, particularly those in southwestern Alaska, cannot gain access to the Internet at all, he says, making it difficult for them to take advantage of online courses. And the challenges may only get worse, he adds, if students cannot use videoconferencing and other network services deemed financially unpromising by broadband carriers.
“We can see entrenched interests that would like to derive profit from the Internet,” Mr. Madison says. “There are competitive advantages to be had by owning the transmission.”
He says a net-neutrality law is the best way to keep telephone and cable companies from discriminating against some network services or imposing unreasonable fees on Web operators that have no affiliations or financial deals with the companies.
But Senator Stevens, the commerce-committee chairman, in comments to reporters, has appeared reluctant to back such a law, even though his aide says the senator has yet to make up his mind. Mr. Stevens has said that the FCC may be able to resolve complaints of network favoritism. In August the commission adopted a set of principles that says consumers have a right to competition among broadband providers and a right to gain access to any network content and application. But the commission has no authority to enforce those principles.
Senator Stevens may also be reluctant to upset companies that have backed him. From January 2001 to December 2005, he received $36,550 from employees of Verizon and its political-action committee, making the company the third-biggest contributor to his campaign coffers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan and nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics. AT&T contributed $22,500 to the senator, according to the center, making that company the sixth-most-generous contributor to his campaign. No computer or software company is among the top 10 contributors. (Aaron Saunders, a commerce-committee aide, says that “any suggestion that Senator Stevens legislates or makes policy based on campaign pledges is ludicrous.”)
Ms. Wigen and Mr. Bachula are finding that other senators on the commerce committee are more receptive to net neutrality.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, a Republican of Maine, and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, a Democrat of North Dakota, plan to cosponsor a bill supporting the principle, and their aides have asked the two higher-education groups for input.
The groups also offered advice to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, before he introduced an aggressive bill that would require broadband providers to treat all Internet content equally and that would give the FCC the authority to impose fines on violators. But prospects for the Internet Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 (S 2360) are dim. Since it was introduced, on March 2, it has not attracted any cosponsors.
According to Ms. Wigen, the Senate aides listen carefully to the arguments of Educause and Internet2 because they see the groups as having no commercial interest in the debate, and because they want to hear about the experience of Internet2 in building out and managing the superfast Abilene network.
Corralling College Presidents
Educause and Internet2 are struggling to get college presidents involved, knowing that lawmakers will be more apt to trumpet the educational benefits of net neutrality if a college president in their district supports the concept. Educause’s Network Policy Council has even drafted a fill-in-the-blank letter on net neutrality for presidents to consider sending to their representatives in Congress.
It reads, in part, “My college/university depends heavily on the Internet. We have [blank] thousand distance-learning students that take courses in [blank] using the Internet. We have [blank] laboratories that are engaged in Internet-related research, including [blank].”
Many college presidents find themselves caught in the middle of the debate, confides a college lobbyist who asked not to be identified. On the one hand, they want to maintain good ties with AT&T, Verizon, and other broadband carriers because, in many cases, the companies provide communication services to their campuses. Some college presidents may even serve on the companies’ boards. On the other hand, the presidents do not want their distance-learning and research programs to suffer because of a tiered Internet that would cause their institutions to pay more than they can afford for reliable, fast Internet service.
Despite college presidents’ reluctance to take a stand, several higher-education groups in Washington are promoting legislation to require telephone and cable companies to operate their networks in a nondiscriminatory way.
The groups sent a letter last month to Senator Stevens and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the ranking Democrat on the commerce committee, which read, in part, “Net neutrality will be important for colleges and universities as they develop new ways to deliver multimedia instructional materials to students, including students off campus and in rural areas.” Nils Hasselmo, then president of the Association of American Universities, signed the letter, on behalf of his group, the American Council on Education, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, Educause, and Internet2.
About two weeks later, the coalition sent a similar letter to the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, before it took up the issue.
Academic-library groups support net neutrality, too. The American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries, as well as Educause, are part of a diverse group calling itself the SavetheInternet.com Coalition. The coalition announced on Monday that it was planning a rally on Capitol Hill and was urging its members to write letters to newspapers and to contact lawmakers. Two law professors -- Lawrence Lessig, of Stanford University, and Tim Wu, of Columbia University, both of whom popularized the term “net neutrality” -- are also part of the coalition.
The groups face an uphill battle in the House, though, because Republicans there are generally against net neutrality. The House commerce committee approved on Wednesday a telecommunications bill, but rejected, 34 to 22, a net-neutrality amendment offered by several Democrats. The legislation, however, would give the FCC the authority to enforce its principles allowing customers unfettered access to any Web site and to run any network application.
Some Progress
Back in Alaska, Stephen B. Jones, chancellor of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, declines to discuss net neutrality with The Chronicle, instead referring a reporter to Steven Smith, the university’s chief information-technology officer.
Mr. Smith’s views mirror those of his colleague, Mr. Madison. He believes that a net-neutrality law would help chip away at barriers that are preventing the Fairbanks campus from delivering education online to students at all levels throughout the state.
In March the campus forged a partnership with telecommunications carriers -- including General Communications, AT&T, and Alaska Communications Systems -- that will extend the university’s access to Internet2’s Abilene network to many schools, libraries, museums, and colleges -- all part of a statewide education network. Abilene regularly delivers data to desktop computers at speeds of up to 100 million bits per second, which is about 100 times as fast as data delivery to most people’s homes.
That kind of speed will allow the Alaskan institutions to more easily collaborate with each other and with organizations outside the state for research and teaching. Students may be able to watch live undersea-exploration demonstrations remotely or take music classes online from world-renowned instructors, according to spokesmen for Internet2 and the Fairbanks campus.
To make the partnership work, the carriers have had to agree to open their networks to elementary and secondary schools that were not their clients, says Mr. Smith. That kind of cooperation is rare among providers. Bandwidth is so limited in Alaska that they usually try to elbow each other out for business.
“It’s a challenge for the carriers to make that happen,” says Mr. Smith, “to say, ‘School, you can be with a carrier of your choice, and you can then participate with the university and with other schools in these advanced Internet applications.’”
“Carriers want to make their network the network of choice,” he adds. “Net neutrality, I think, goes right to the center of that concern.”
Background articles from The Chronicle: