Senator plans Net taxes but no Net neutrality

By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: April 25, 2006, 9:04 AM PDT

WASHINGTON--More Americans would be forced to pay taxes subsidizing broadband service in "unserved" locales, and cities would be free to go into the Wi-Fi business under an upcoming U.S. Senate bill.

Later this week, Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, plans to introduce a legislative package called the Broadband for America Act of 2006, he said Tuesday morning at a conference here hosted by the National Telecommunications CooperativeAssociation, which represents small and rural carriers.

Conspicuously absent from the bill, however, is any mention of Net neutrality, which refers to the idea of the federal government forcibly preventing broadband providers from favoring some Web sites or video streams' connection speeds over others. The concept has generated significant controversy in the House of Representatives' version of a telecommunications reform bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to take up its own proposal again on Tuesday evening, with a vote expected later in the week.

A copy of the 41-page bill seen by CNET News.com is essentially a combination of existing proposals introduced by Smith and his colleagues on the Senate Commerce Committee. That committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, has also been readying what Smith called "an even more comprehensive bill" intended to overhaul the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which has been criticized as outdated for failing to account for the Internet's vast new influence.

Smith's bill is not intended to rival Stevens' proposal, he said, but he hopes that its "targeted" nature will allow it to pass more speedily through committee and to the Senate floor. "The bigger it is, the more comprehensive it is, the more likely it is to get bogged down," he said.

As network operators roll out more advanced broadband services, particularly video, they've argued that they should be able to finance those efforts by charging bandwidth-hogging content providers extra fees for the privilege of faster transmission or other preferential treatment. Net neutrality supporters say they're concerned such a practice would amount to unprecedented Internet "gatekeeping" that could raise consumer costs and inhibit innovation, and they've called on Congress to legislate against it.

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