Time Warner Cable and AT&T tried to pull a fast one on North Carolina residents before most of us even had our morning coffee today. Turns out stifling Internet access happens at all hours of the day.

But even the companies’ powerful team of lobbyists couldn’t stand up to the overwhelming netroots and grassroots pressure to stop a bad bill that would keep the Internet out of millions of people’s hands in North Carolina.

The proposed legislation would have protected cable and phone company monopolies while squashing efforts by towns and cities to build their own local broadband networks. These municipal networks can connect areas that industry giants like AT&T and Time Warner Cable have long overlooked and refused to service.

Yesterday, activists from across the state and on the Internet were celebrating what appeared to be a victory. After an intense round of public pressure, a House committee sent the bill to a “study committee,” a pleasant way of putting it out to pasture.

By early this morning, Twitter feeds and blogs were sounding the alarm: The fight was back on. Time Warner Cable and AT&T had orchestrated a sneak attack, hoping to slip the bill through the Senate by getting legislators to move a committee meeting up to 8 a.m. The industry plan was to get a vote for the legislation before we had a chance to boot up our computers and guzzle our first caffeine.

Concerned citizens started to scramble. We had the Internet on our side – you know, the thing AT&T and Time Warner Cable want to control. Social media sites, Twitter feeds and e-mails lit up, urging North Carolinians to blast their legislators with calls and e-mails even before the legislature opened for business. And the urgent action appeals online were met with concerted grassroots efforts on the ground to get people to show up at the statehouse.

In the end, the companies’ sunrise assault was no match for the people, who effectively lobbied their legislatures to abandon the bill. The Senate followed suit, also tabling the bill in a “study committee.”

Ideally, the legislature would have come out with an unequivocal “NO” vote to reject the bill outright. But a slow death by committee might do the trick, too.

As Phillip Dampier at StoptheCap.com warns, we must continue to stay vigilant to make sure this bill doesn’t pop back up. After all, it looks like Time Warner Cable and AT&T will stop at nothing to own the Net.

On Wednesday, May 6, the European Parliament voted on the “Telecoms Package,” a new set of amendments that represent a serious attack on Europeans’ civil liberties when it comes to freedom of access to the Internet. The vote could have legalized something that some broadband providers have already been doing in the past: selectively blocking and filtering Internet traffic as and when it suits them. The Telecoms Package had gone through a suspicious set of last-minute rewrites that go against normal rules and procedures, leading many to believe that the legislation is being influenced by pressure from the industry.

Luckily, citizens responded to these developments and raised a huge amount of awareness among members of Parliament around the issue of Net Neutrality. As a result, the Telecoms Package was rejected and will need to be revised before it is reconsidered.

Why everyone should care

Many try to brush off Internet issues as being overblown by paranoid activists. They say that the dynamics of the free market would automatically safeguard user freedoms and that freely allowing broadband providers to filter, block and ‘censor’ all traffic as they see fit can only lead to more innovation and better (more ‘managed’) use of bandwidth. But even in Europe, consumers often don’t have much choice of Internet providers. Legalizing such practices might not be immediately evident, but it is certain to kill the Internet as we know it in the long run.

The EU’s Fight for Net Neutrality

Imagine an Internet provider also running its own video-sharing site comparable to YouTube. Without Net Neutrality, this provider would have every right to simply block a user from accessing YouTube and force them to use their own Web site. Imagine providers having specific deals with Big Media networks such as Fox or MSNBC and blocking you from accessing any other video streams online. Or, simply imagine a provider blocking you from using Skype, forcing you to use its phone lines instead. The latter scenario is already taking place in several countries, so it isn’t that far-fetched to think the Internet as we know it would mutate into a very limited television-like medium over the course of 10 to 20 years under legislation that explicitly permits any and all such traffic management practices.

How people in the EU are fighting back

The Internet has allowed for an explosion of grassroots movements all over the globe, and as a result, it has also made a lot of people aware of how precious the medium has become. This has given birth to Web sites such as Iptegrity.com and LaQuadrature.net that have been doing a fantastic job digging deep into the ins and outs of Internet issues in the EU and informing people of ways to take action.

Activists also took action with IPowerProject.com – the site I co-founded – and launched a massive campaign to inform members of the European Parliament of the consequences of the Telecoms Package on Net Neutrality. Thousands of I Power members and many visitors who were inspired by LaQuadrature.net, Iptegrity.com and BlackoutEurope.eu have been e-mailing and calling their members of Parliament to express their concerns. Several members of Parliament stood up and spoke out during the voting this Wednesday to state that these concerns should be taken into account.

As a result, the Telecoms Package was rejected and many members of Parliament now have a better understanding of how important these issues are to European citizens. We’ve made a huge impact in raising awareness around these issues within the European Parliament and we’ll keep moving forward until we see concrete amendments to safeguard Net Neutrality appear in European laws.

Those of us who focus on media and Internet policy were caught off guard in 2008 when a handful of presidential candidates started to talk about the media and not just through it.

The problem of the media was mentioned in stump speeches in Silicon Valley and Palm Beach, Florida, and on whistle stops in between. But the campaign rhetoric went beyond the standard refrain about media bias to real discussions about the policy reforms that we need to make American media, and especially the Internet, much better.

No one was more outspoken on the trail than then-candidate Barack Obama. Has President Obama lived up to his Internet and media campaign promises in his first 100 Days in office? Let’s take a look.

Candidate Obama Gets an “A”

As early as fall 2007, Obama made a strong commitment to a free-flowing, accessible and open Internet when he unveiled his new media agenda, “Connecting and Empowering All Americans through Technology and Innovation.”

The Internet Candidate Goes to Washington

Obama’s support for Net Neutrality was on display throughout his campaign. Upon announcing his agenda Obama declared he would “take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality. Because once providers start to privilege some applications or Web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose.”

Later, during an appearance on MTV, he pledged he would appoint only Federal Communications Commission commissioners who support Net Neutrality — a campaign promise that President Obama fulfilled in March when he tapped open Internet supporter Julius Genachowski to be the agency’s new chairman.

Closing the Divide

But a neutral Internet only benefits those who can connect to it. Despite the wave of online political empowerment — notable in the Obama campaign’s own success organizing and fundraising via the Internet, more than 40 percent of the nation remains without a high-speed Internet connection today. On an international scale, the United States has slipped to 22nd place in the world in broadband adoption, a profound embarrassment for the country that invented the Internet.

Candidate Obama pledged to get the country’s Internet back on track. His agenda stated that as president he would make access to broadband as common as access to telephone and electricity services , “regardless of economic status.”

He proposed to get the nation connected through a combination of policy reforms (including a rethink of the “Universal Service Fund“) further opening of the nation’s wireless spectrum (such as “white spaces“) and promoting new innovations in technology.

In a December 2008, President-elect Obama gave the nation a glimpse at his plan to bring the Internet to everyone. “Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online,” he said via a Saturday-morning YouTube address. “Because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

“A” for Intent

Now, 100 days in, the president has cleared a path to a more democratic, open and accessible media in America. But it’s only a start.

Within weeks of his inauguration, the president urged Congress to treat the Internet as essential infrastructure in the 21st century. The resulting American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $7.2 billion to do just that. But, according to top technical advisers within Obama’s administration, the broadband stimulus money was only a piece of the president’s larger plan to make high-speed Internet access an opportunity for everyone.

Net Neutrality was written into the DNA of the broadband stimulus. The plan requires that those who build Internet networks (using nearly $4.7 billion in specific grants provided by the bill) adhere to the nondiscrimination and openness principles at the core of Net Neutrality.

The legislation also directed the FCC to draft a national broadband plan to determine the “most effective and efficient ways” to deliver affordable, high-speed Internet services to more communities.” About developing this plan, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps (also a Net Neutrality supporter) said the agency had “never received a more serious charge.”

“If we do our job well, this will be the most formative — indeed transformative — proceeding ever in the commission’s history,” said Copps.

“Incomplete” on Implementation

In a letter to activists at SavetheInternet.com about the FCC plan, Sen. John Kerry wrote, “this means that all of our efforts are starting to pay off.” Kerry, who is now the chair of the influential Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, has made universal access and an open Internet a priority in his new role.

“The FCC is looking for ideas and goals from just about everyone — but especially from people like you,” Kerry wrote. “They want to know what you want from our national broadband and how you think we can get that. This is a critical point in the long hard slog you’ve been engaged in.”

With further leadership from the White House, we can create a media system that’s right for the 21st century — a time when the media is becoming more decentralized, participatory and people-powered.

The good news is that President Obama gets that better than most politicians who have come before him. We still have work to do with this White House to make it happen.

The new administration’s early progress report is very encouraging. But it’s the final grade that matters.

Quietly, last night, AT&T revised its wireless plans. In the latest changes to the company’s service terms, it looks like AT&T is trying to exempt its own video services while prohibiting competing services like the Slingbox.

Sound familiar? I wrote about it on April 3rd. iPhone and PDA users literally felt their significant investment get less valuable. They complained, and AT&T removed the offending language by the next day, calling the language a mistake.

Guess what? It’s back!

Sometime in the past 24 hours, AT&T changed the TOS again:

This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited.

This is a company that already limits users’ consumption of bandwidth (it has a 5 GB cap). As I said in my previous post, it’s not very “Internet” when the ISP is picking and choosing what legal activities you may and may not do with your connection. With AT&T prohibiting you from watching your TV, they figure that you’re much more likely to subscribe to their “AT&T Mobile TV” service.

Farmer Jay Foushee has pleaded with his phone company for years to bring high-speed Internet to his rural area of Roxboro, N.C. And across the state, where nearly five million people are offline, desperate residents have petitioned phone and cable companies to finally deliver this necessary lifeline.

“I have called our local phone companies numerous times asking, ‘When can we get [high-speed Internet]?’ ” Jay says. “I keep getting, ‘Well, it’s coming, it’s coming.’ And this has been going on for about three years now.”

How have the cable and phone companies responded to public demand for high-speed Internet? By writing a law that would keep the Internet out of people’s hands. AT&T and Time Warner Cable are pushing a piece of legislation (SB1004/HB1252) that would prevent millions of North Carolina residents from gaining access to the Internet and take the Internet away from residents who currently have it.

The proposed legislation would protect cable and phone company monopolies while squashing efforts by towns and cities to build their own local broadband networks. These municipal networks can connect areas that industry giants like AT&T and Time Warner have long overlooked.

It looks as though these companies will do anything to stifle competition, whether it’s crushing online video viewing, or blocking communities outright from connecting themselves to the Internet.

This week, the House Science and Technology Committee shifted the bill to the Public Utilities Committee (PUC).

Public outrage against the bill has been pouring in from across the state, and the Raleigh City Council approved a resolution this week opposing its passage. Activists are calling members of the PUC to urge them to kill the bill. You can help by contacting:

Chair Lorraine Coates (D-Rowan County)
Email: Lorene.Coates@ncleg.net
Phone: 919-733-5784

Vice Chair Harold Brubaker (R – Randolph County)
Email: Harold.Brubaker@ncleg.net
Phone: 919-715-4946

Many cities and towns across the state have proposed building their own networks to connect their residents. And judging from the discussions during an InternetforEveryone.org town hall meeting in Durham in March, people want more Internet, not less. But the proposed legislation would ban these plans, and lock in AT&T and Time Warner Cables’s control of North Carolina’s Internet marketplace.

Brian Bowman, the public affairs manager for the city of Wilson, which offers its residents broadband, is warning that the legislation would destroy other towns’ attempts to create their own networks. He wrote on his Save NC Broadband blog:

NC Senate Bill 1004 and House Bill 1252 would change the law to stop other NC cities from providing broadband. The bills are titled “Level the Playing Field” but their effect is to protect cable monopolies in our state. A representative of the cable company told me Wilson would be exempt, but it’s still wrong for NC.

If the cable/phone companies really want a level playing field, they’d open their books like we do in the spirit of open meetings and open records law. They don’t want a level playing field. They want to be the only team on the field.

Why should we care about what happens in North Carolina? Because if this bill succeeds, don’t expect the phone and cable companies to stop with just one state. Does your state allow cities and communities to offer broadband to their residents? You could be next on Time Warner Cable’s legislative agenda.

Today, I want to thank everyone involved in the grassroots movement that helped secure this first-round victory in the battle over broadband tiered pricing. Through the power of the people, together we were able to persuade Time Warner Cable to abandon its download-based tiered-billing plan in four markets: Rochester, N.Y., San Antonio, Texas, Austin, Texas, and Greensboro, N.C.

Guest Post by
Rep. Eric Massa

Even though we won this first fight together, there is still much to be done to ensure that download-based caps do not emerge elsewhere.

As such, I will be continuing forward with the Massa Broadband Internet Fairness Act. This is not about telling a company how to run its business. Quite the contrary — this is to make sure that consumers are protected, that the economy is not harmed further in a deep recession, and that businesses are offered initiatives that would actually help them.

We need to keep access to information over the Internet open, and we are seeking to enact legislation to that end.

Again, this first-round victory would not have been possible without your support. The people spoke and Time Warner Cable listened. Let’s keep the momentum moving forward.

It was Gandhi who said to a reporter, “Excuse me, but I must catch up to my followers.” That is how I view this victory: I may have had the public megaphone, but it was my constituents and the grassroots movement nationally that led this fight.

I’m happy to have played a role in exacting this very important change and I look forward to the next step to make sure the victory is long-lived.

The open Internet's leading lights spoke out in support of today's FCC order against Comcast:

Professor Larry Lessig, Stanford Law

In all of my experience reviewing government decisions affecting the Internet, I have read none that are more subtle and sophisticated in their understanding of the Internet, and few that are as important for setting the conditions under which innovation and competition on the Internet will flourish.

As the Order makes clear, the Commission has clearly recognized the importance of the Internet as a platform for technological growth and innovation. It is also an extraordinarily important platform for free speech. Innovation and technological growth are essential components to economic prosperity. Free speech is the single most important element in a democracy.

… By secretly adding a layer of secret sauce into the Internet that interferes with legitimate applications and network services, Comcast has injured the value of the Internet to other innovators. By denying that it has done this, it has added insult to that injury. The Commission has done us all a great service by stating clearly that it will assure that the platform for innovation that the Internet is will not be compromised by such behavior.

Professor David Reed, MIT's Media Lab and one of the Internet's founding architects

The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator, whether providing access lines or backbone transport. This is the essence of internetworking. The Internet is not just "another network" owned and operated by a private concern for a set of customers. The Commission order clearly comprehends that special quality that transcends the interests of Comcast or any other access provider.

The strongest part of the order, for me personally, is that it navigates the tough path between heavy-handed regulation and disciplining misbehavior. To me, this is the challenge that separates government by "sound bite" and the difficult work of making our country work.

Professor Jack Balkin, Yale Law and Professor Barbara van Schewick, Stanford Law

By securing end users' unimpeded access to applications and content, the FCC's order protects fair competition and economic innovation.

It preserves the Internet's decentralized structure, which has permitted the Internet to tap the genius of people around the world and create new content and powerful new applications that few could have dreamed of.

… [The order] is the beginning of a sound public policy for the digital age. It is welcome news for consumers, innovators, citizens, and everyone who has come to rely on unimpeded access to the content and applications available on an open Internet.

We commend the Commission for taking this important first step.

Harold Feld, Media Access Project

[The order] states clearly that protecting the open and vibrant character of the internet by prohibiting blocking or degrading of applications does not raise First Amendment issues. To the contrary such action furthers First Amendment values. (In my opinion, this finding alone makes this Order a huge win.)

… We don't walk away from this, or stop fighting for the rules we need. Tomorrow, we go right back to work — starting with defending this Order from the inevitable appeal. But tonight, we can celebrate another critical win that keeps an open internet possible.

It's official. The Federal Communications Commission published its order today lowering the hammer on Comcast for derailing Internet users' Web access and then pretending that the cable giant was doing nothing wrong.

The order, approved by a bipartisan FCC majority at the beginning of the month, demands that Comcast "must stop" its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by year's end.

As we have written before, this action carries considerable weight.

It's the first time the FCC has gone to such lengths to assert users' right to an open Internet. And it sends a warning shot across the bow of other major ISPs that are flirting with the idea of blocking, filtering or degrading content, or favoring certain Web sites and services over others.

The FCC Delivers

"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy," says Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. "For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. Today, the commission has delivered on that promise."

The order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities — and more than 25,000 public comments.

"This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to an open Internet," Scott says.

Comcast's Smokescreen

Comcast and its Astroturf allies flooded the FCC with filings that challenged the FCC authority and outright denied any wrongdoing. But the smackdown of Comcast's claims issued today makes clear that the agency is on solid legal footing.

"The Communications Act has long established the federal agency's authority to promote the competition, consumer choice, and diverse information across all communications platforms," explains Marvin Ammori, Free Press' legal counsel, who authored the 2007 complaint against the cable giant.

In 2005, the agency unanimously adopted an Internet policy statement that "extended these rights to Internet users – including the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice."

That statement served the basis for the Free Press complaint, which set the wheels of the FCC churning towards today's welcome result.

A Scathing Rebuke

The FCC was unconvinced by Comcast's attempts to evade accountability. The order finds that Comcast's repeated "verbal gymnastics" and attempts to muddy the issue of blocking were "unpersuasive and beside the point."

The commissioners were especially outraged by Comcast's lies and deception. When it first got caught blocking the Internet, the cable giant "misleadingly disclaimed any responsibility for its customers' problems," according to the FCC order, followed by "at best misdirection and obfuscation."

Contrary to the spin of Comcast's lawyers, the FCC can protect the rights of Internet users, and promote openness, free speech and competition on the Web.

"The decision shows that the agency understands the importance of the technological principles of the Internet's design," wrote David Reed, a pioneer in the design of the Internet's fundamental architecture.

"The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator," Reed wrote. "The design of the Internet Protocols specifies clear limits on what operators can and cannot do… Happily, the FCC recognized and exposed Comcast's transgressions of those limits."

Internet users must remain vigilant in defending an open Internet. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the order. But the FCC needs the public to continue to remind them to punish all violations.

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Federal Communications Commission published an enforcement order punishing Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, for blocking Internet users' access to legal online content and services. The order, approved by a bipartisan majority on Aug. 1, requires Comcast to stop its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by the end of the year and disclose all "network management" practices.

The Communications Act has long established the FCC's legal authority to promote the broad goals of competition, consumer choice and diverse information across all communications platforms. In 2005, the FCC unanimously adopted an "Internet Policy Statement" explicitly guaranteeing Internet users the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice.

Last fall, the Associated Press caught Comcast secretly blocking users' legal peer-to-peer traffic, calling the company's practice the "most drastic example yet of data discrimination." In response, Free Press and Public Knowledge filed a complaint, triggering the first test case of the FCC's policy statement. This order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities and more than 50,000 public comments.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, issued the following statement:

"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy. For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. Today, the commission has delivered on that promise.

"The FCC's action confirms that it is illegal for Internet service providers to block or impede access to lawful online content. This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to unfettered Internet access.

"Contrary to the claims made by Comcast and others, the FCC is well within its authority to protect the open Internet, either by adopting rules or acting on complaints. It is the FCC's responsibility to promote openness, free speech and competition -- the bedrock goals of the Communications Act.

"Standing on the solid legal foundation established today by the FCC, Internet users must remain vigilant in defending an open Internet. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the law. They can trust that the FCC is ready to punish any violations."

Read the Comcast Order: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-183A1.pdf