Tug of War

As I was reading the article, “The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet” found on washingtionpost.com, written by Christopher Stern, I began to wonder if this is a debate that is still happening today? Are telephone communication companies debating giving priority service to the internet company that pays more? The internet itself is not owned by anyone, neither are the communication air waves.

The article discusses how telephone communication companies have to pay for building faster, better communication networks to compensate for how much space an internet search engine like Yahoo can take up. Telephone communication companies believe that they are getting the raw end of the deal. Especially when all the search engines have to do is pay a small fee to be connected to the internet using the telephone company lines. Telephone companies want to make it so that a search engine must outbid search engine to receive a better connection service form the telephone communication companies. This would in turn give some internet search engines an unfair advantage over others due to the service they are being provided. Some websites will pull up faster than others. Some sights will process information faster than others, and it won’t be due to the search engine itself but the connection that it is paying for. This makes service harder for anyone but an already huge search engine to get the service needed to start a new search engine idea. As Alan Davidson, Washington Policy Counsel for Google says, “Our worry is not for Google but for the prospect of bringing fresh innovation to the Internet. After all, if worse comes to worst, Google can pay AT&T or BellSouth to maintain its role as the Internet's dominant search engine. But the bright young start-up with the next big innovative idea won't have that option.” By making a search engine pay a certain fee to receive better connection services we will limit the number of new ideas and information that could further benefit our future.

There is a solution. In this article it discusses a Telecommunications Act that is being revised. The Concept of “network neutrality” could be added to this law. It would prohibit telecommunications companies from making search engines pay more money to receive a better connection. I believe this is a concept that should be put into the act. It will protect the growing momentum of ideas that be distributed through the internet.