Free Internet?
When we say "Free Internet", we're not using the word "free" in terms of money. We're talking about freedom, specifically the freedom to do what you want, when you want, online. We're talking about keeping the Internet a free and open medium for communication. Another more commonly used term for this is Network Neutrality (or Net Neutrality for short).
Net Neutrality?
The Internet Service Providers, the companies you pay each month to bring the Internet into your home (Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon for example), are trying to limit what you can do online. In one scheme, called a "tiered Internet", you would pay a flat-fee (like you do now) to access the sites of the major content providers. But what if you want to read blogs, purchase from small businesses, access independent media, or see your granddaughter's wedding photos? There would be extra fees for each of these, in much the same way you now have to pay for premium cable channels like HBO and Cinemax. The idea of a tiered Internet, while it sounds far-fetched, is actually something that several telecom executives such as William Smith of BellSouth and Ed Whitacre of AT&T have publicly endorsed. In a now-famous interview with BusinessWeek, Whitacre said:
How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google, MSN, Vonage, and others?
How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!
What happens if we don't get Net Neutrality?
The Internet as we now know it will disapear. The majority of small businesses, independent content producers, and artists who have an online presence will be unable to compete because a majority of the people they would otherwise be able to reach will find themselves unable to pay all the extra fees to see those websites.
If this sounds bad to you, then you need to find out what you can do to preserve Net Neutrality in Colorado and nationwide today.