01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 18, 2006

WASHINGTON

INTERNET providers want to spend billions of dollars to speed up and expand the connections between consumers' homes and the Internet backbone -- to deliver video, specialized online services, and a faster, better Internet. And they want to do this without shifting the entire cost onto the consumers.

The most logical way to do this is to offer specialized, tiered services to such major content providers as Google, Amazon, and eBay. But the mere mention of such services has resulted in those online Goliaths' demanding new "net-neutrality" laws to regulate the Internet.

Without any basis, the net-neutrality advocates assert that the Internet providers will block content and degrade transmission on the Internet. Therefore, they assert, a new regulatory regime is needed, to protect the consumers. And they have worked the blogosphere into a frenzy to demand a new law.

The U.S. House looked at the issue recently, when it passed legislation to permit nationwide video competition, and rejected this approach. Fortunately, a solid majority of representatives, from both parties, concluded that while the Federal Communications Commission should have authority to police content discrimination, a wholesale set of new regulations governing the Internet is unnecessary.

They saw how this approach could impede development of high-speed networks across America and lessen choices for consumers, by resulting in only one lane -- one congested lane -- on the Internet's path to the consumer. Instead, these representatives supported the building of multiple lanes, with multiple services, and a result of that private investment would be a faster and more robust Internet.

So, as the debate over national video competition moves to the Senate, it's critical that Americans understand the reality of this debate.

Every major Internet provider has pledged not to touch lawful content on the Web, not to block it, and not to degrade its delivery. Any provider that blocked access or degraded delivery would be inviting its customers to find another provider.

Moreover, if that ever did happen, the FCC has the power right now to police such discriminatory conduct, and would have enhanced power under the provisions of the House bill.

An oft-repeated slogan of the proponents of regulation is that without a new law, the next inventor has no hope of getting his or her Google-like invention launched. In fact, the opposite is true. The Internet is about to experience an explosion in traffic as it begins to deliver everything from phone calls to high-definition movies. That is why companies are investing billions building smart networks to bring faster connections to our doorsteps. But if a new legal regime requires all online services to be carried on a single lane, there will be no opportunity for innovative new services to be offered for specialized online delivery. All online content will be forced into one dumb pipe, and the development of super-fast, reliable, and secure specialized services will be blocked.

The reality is that with smart networks in the home, the next Google inventor still will have the Internet at his or her disposal (at a much higher speed and capacity) and new lanes on which to offer innovative new services.

What is being proposed is a first-time-ever regulation of online services, under which the FCC would micromanage how the Internet is constructed, managed, and priced. The likely result would be reluctance by providers to offer such services, because of the regulatory difficulty and legal uncertainty. And if some form of advanced network did get built, the consumers would foot the entire bill, as the Googles, Amazons, and eBays enjoyed the free ride on the congested lane of the Internet.

Our legislators need to look beyond the slogans, consider the adverse implications of unnecessary regulation, and decide what kind of future they want for American entrepreneurs before voting to regulate the Internet.

Mike McCurry and Christopher Wolf are co-chairmen of Hands Off the Internet, a coalition of companies (including Alcatel, AT&T, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications) and nonprofit groups (including Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union, and the Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide).