• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 9, 2006

Hearings this week in the U.S. Senate about whether broadband providers should be required to give consumers access to all legal Web sites revealed a deep divide between broadband access providers and Web-based companies like Google and Vonage that deliver services or information online.

Representatives from Google and Vonage testified in favor of "net neutrality" legislation, which would guarantee that broadband carriers allow consumers unrestricted access to the Web.

Without such laws, they fear that Internet access companies will deny consumers access to competitors--as happened briefly last year, when at least two broadband providers prevented consumers from receiving Voice over Internet Protocol calls through Vonage.

"Imagine if the electric company could dictate which toaster or television you plugged into the wall," testified Jeffrey A. Citron, chairman and CEO of Vonage, at a Tuesday hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.

"Because Vonage competes directly with the telephone service of the network operators that also provide high-speed Internet access, the incentives to discriminate against us are clear," Citron said, in testimony that was posted on the Senate's Web site.

But telecom and cable companies maintain that no new laws are needed.

"In the absence of any problem calling for a legislative solution," testified Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, "Congress should refrain from premature legislative action, and allow the marketplace to continue to grow and change so network and applications providers can offer consumers the fullest range of innovative service options."

The hearings came the same week that Verizon Senior Vice President John Thorpe complained in the Washington Post that Google was getting a "free lunch" because consumers spent so much time, and bandwidth, on the service.

Google's Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, disputed that reasoning. "The broadband carriers already are fully compensated by their residential customers for their use of the network," he testified.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he intended to introduce legislation to preserve Net neutrality and "assure that information from a company like J. Crew is not treated worse than information from a company like L.L. Bean."