(InfoWorld) - Broadband providers need the right to enter into commercial agreements that allow some Web sites to perform better than rival sites, a BellSouth Corp. executive said Wednesday.
BellSouth, as the owner of a broadband network, should be able to charge extra for one search engine to return faster results than others that customers want to go to, said Bennett Ross, BellSouth's general counsel, speaking at the State of the 'Net conference in Washington, D.C.
The success of the Internet has been due to the U.S. government keeping its hands off the Internet, Ross said.
Others at the event, including "father" of the Internet Vinton Cerf, called on the U.S. Congress to pass a so-called net neutrality law, which would allow broadband customers to access any legal Web content and services and attach any legal device they want, while prohibiting broadband providers from giving their partners preferential service.
A net neutrality law is needed after the U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in August ended the so-called common carrier rules for large DSL (digital subscriber line) providers such as BellSouth and Verizon Communications Inc. by saying they no longer needed to share their broadband networks with competing Internet service providers, said Cerf, co-designer of the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). Congress is now considering net neutrality rules as part telecom reform legislation to be debated later this year.
In addition, just over 50 percent of U.S. residents had a choice of two broadband providers in 2004, said Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google Inc., citing FCC numbers. A law is needed, he said, because many U.S. residents can't switch providers if they don't like that their provider is giving preferential treatment to some Web sites or applications and slowing access to others.
"This doesn't constitute, in my mind, a competitive environment," Cerf said.
But BellSouth's Ross argued that providers have a hard time convincing customers to pay US$24 a month for DSL. The broadband providers need to find new business plans, such as charging Web sites for improved performance, to have enough money to build and improve their networks, he said.
Asked if Verizon would charge some Web sites extra for better service, Link Hoewing, Verizon's assistant vice president of Internet and technology issues, said such a situation was "hypothetical."
Other speakers at the event, sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus, said BellSouth's vision of the future would kill the openness that's made the Internet successful.
It's fine for providers to charge more for 10M-bit service than 1 megabit service, said Gerry Waldron, a lawyer who works for the Covington & Butling law firm and represents Internet companies pushing for net neutrality rules. But without a net neutrality law, large broadband providers will give preference to their own and their partners Web pages and applications while slowing down service for competing companies such as independent voice over IP providers, he said.
"We don't think (the providers) should get to decide who wins and loses," he said.
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