Net neutrality may end soon

Imagine an internet where consumers paid a low price for basic services and more for add-ons such as 3-D video.

Or imagine if Comcast Corp, now seeking approval to acquire General Electric Co’s NBC Universal, lets its customers download Universal movies at superfast speeds, while relegating the latest Harry Potter film from rival Time Warner Inc to the slow lane.

Open-internet advocates say such cable television-like tiered services and virtual toll booths would violate “net neutrality,” and one should support the concept that all information coursing across the Web is equal.

Like it or not, net neutrality may soon be ending. No one senses this more acutely than Julius Genachowski. Since a federal court ruling in April gutted his power to regulate internet service providers, the Federal Communications Commission chairman has struggled to regain authority over carriers such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, and Comcast by proposing new rules and holding closed-door talks with industry players.

His predicament deepened on August 9 when the CEOs of Google Inc and Verizon, Eric Schmidt and Ivan G Seidenberg, suggested that the industry embrace net neutrality — up to a point. They would exempt from open-access rules wireless networks and any “managed services” delivered over wires, such as health-care monitoring, special entertainment events, and gambling.

The CEOs offered as an example an opera performance streamed in 3D over the Web. Verizon would be paid a premium to send the program to opera buffs more quickly and at higher quality.

Now, with the Congress unable to agree on whether to stop companies from carving up the internet, Genachowski is left with few choices. He wants to uphold President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to protect the open Web, even as the industry gets set to impose restrictions.

The Google-Verizon plan hit like “a tidal wave” because Google had been “a very strong supporter of net neutrality,” Darrell West, vice-president of governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Bloomberg Television.

Google seems to be laying the groundwork for tiered pricing, and “the internet is going to become more like other parts of the economy,” West said.