The US Congress has begun hearings to introduce new telecom legislations that would include provisions that would ensure unlimited Internet access to consumers.  What phone and cable companies want is to charge Internet firms and content providers fees for using their lines to deliver information and services to consumers all in the name of profit.

These companies argue that they spend a great deal of money building the infrastructure to deliver high-speed Internet and cable services with Internet content providers getting a free ride.  In a Washington Post story last month, an executive from Verizon, one of the biggest telco in the US, accused Google of “freeloading for gaining access to people’s homes using a network of lines and cables” their company built and spent billions of dollars to construct.

In the same article, Vincent Cerf, one of those who designed the Internet’s protocol and now vice-president at Google, expressed his concern over access provider’s wanting to create a “toll road to limit customers’ ability to get access to services of their choice even though they have paid for access to the network in the first place.”

In a local setting, it’s like saying that Internet content providers in the country will have to pay PLDT, Bayantel, and other phone and cable companies so that we, the subscribers can access content and avail of services from the content providers’ web sites.

In a Public Knowledge white paper written by John Windhausen, Jr., he wrote that a telephone company executive has announced his company’s intention of establishing tiered services at high prices reserved exclusively for content providers that would be chosen by the network operator.  This means that content providers who pay higher costs to network operators will be given faster access than those who pay less.

Being unregulated “information services”, according to Windhausen, broadband network operators are “no longer under any legal obligation to keep their networks open to all Internet content, services, and equipment.”  There have been instances of cable companies barring their customers from using their cable modems for virtual private networks and home networks, blocking streaming video applications and VOIP.

As I see things, advocates for net neutrality who want to enact a law that would ensure unlimited access to the Internet are doing so out of fear that network providers will, in the near future, become selective in terms of providing Internet access.  But I hope that network operators in the country think twice before doing the same thing in the country.

Broadband services are only starting to pick up in the country and phone and cable companies are coming up with all sorts of marketing ideas to attract customers.  It would be counterproductive for them to embark on a similar model all in the name of profit.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if the ICT sector start discussing similar moves to advocate for unlimited access to the Internet before it’s too late.

I definitely do not want to be told what sites to visit by my Internet provider.

(For comments, feedback, suggestions email me at openingpagemb@yahoo.com)