US Open Internet access hotly debated before FCC

"We are here facing these problems because of a failure of FCC policy," said Larry Lessig, a Stanford Law School professor and founder of the Center for Internet and Society. "The FCC has failed to make it absolutely clear that network owners, if they're building the Internet, have to make it absolutely open. Consumers are saying don't thread on me."

In remarks before the testimony, one of the FCC commissioners,Deborah Taylor Tate, said that she was encouraged by several steps Comcast and other network operators made after the Harvard Law School hearing last February.

"Technology and the marketplace seem to be responding to appropriate oversight mechanisms," Tate said. Her remarks were heckled by some in the audience.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, shot back accusing the FCC of "weak" management and said Comcast's recent actions to calm the net neutrality debate is not a change of heart by the ISP but "the magic of regulatory threat at work."

Jean Prewitt, president and chief executive officer of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, testified that"discrimination should not be an outcome of legitimate network management. While copyright issues are of critically important to our members, copyright concerns can't be the excuse to prevent access to the market. Don't use copyright laws to block usage. That will backfire for all of us."

During a two-hour public comment period at the end of hearing,dozens of speakers urged the FCC commissioners to protect network neutrality and free speech. Many pointed toward open access is crucial to minority groups being able to communicate and connect via the Internet and their speech would be curtailed with by tiered or pay to play Internet access proposed by some ISPs.

With consumer choices limited to one or two ISPs most locations,marketplace fails to provide a level playing field, said L. Peter Deutsch, a pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center computer scientist.

"Comcast's actions to date have shown that they cannot be trusted to self regulate," Deutsch said.