For those who wonder what all the fuss about so-called net neutrality is about, witness what Comcast has done to subscribers of its "Internet" service.

Essentially, Comcast is secretly blocking certain Internet requests and Internet traffic in the same manner that hackers hijack computer systems with false messages. Comcast does not inform customers that it is blocking Internet traffic; indeed, it intentionally hides its hacking activity from users.

Comcast's behavior raises several issues: Is the company guilty of deceptive advertising by claiming it offers high-speed Internet access when in fact it only offers access to some parts of the Internet? Can it now be sued by users--including the possibility of a class action suit--for such practices? Is it trying to censor Internet traffic in the same way that government officials in China and Burma censor Internet access? Will the company begin censoring sites that differ from its corporate political views? (In fact, several analysts point out that there appears to be no specific law to prevent Comcast  from blocking or hiding, say, republican or democratic sites from its customers.)

Now that Comcast has been caught deceiving its customers and ducking questions about its behavior--questions that were raised as long ago as last August--it may represent a turning point in the battle over net neutrality. Until now, companies such as Verizon and AT&T claimed that there was no reason to enact laws protecting Internet access as it exists because no one was blocking access to customers or planning to do so.

But now the telecom oligopoly has in fact started to hijack the Internet, which may finally spur people and the politicians that represent them into action.

For more on net neutrality, see: Verizon and AT&T: Web 2.0 Killers

For more on Comcast's actions, see: Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic

FOR MORE OF JQ'S NEWS AND REVIEWS, VISIT J-Q.COM

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Hello? Hello?

Net neutrality has yet to pierce the public consciousness (Jon Stewart notwithstanding), but that moment may soon be upon us.

The phrase "net neutrality" refers to the current state of the Web wherein every site has parity on the Internet. Anyone can start a Web site (say, Joe's Guide to Sesquipedalianistic People) and be assured that you and I can connect to it as easily as we connect to, say, The New York Times online. It is the way the Internet was designed, and it is what makes it a unique communications tool and an increasingly essential part of the global business and information infrastructure.

Now, several companies want to hijack the Web, change its structure, and use it to wring money out of every single site on the World Wide Web. The proposal is to strike down net neutrality so that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest could make it easier to access some web sites and more difficult to access others. So, in the future if you wanted people to be able to download video clips from your site, for example, you'd have to pay additional fees to one of the companies that own the phyisical telecommunications lines, otherwise those companies would make it extremely difficult for people to access your Web site.

The result: Good-bye comparison shopping online, good-bye entrepreneurs and innovation, good-bye voice over IP digital phone services like Skype, good-bye videos online, good-bye every Web 2.0 idea you've every heard of. The only sites that would survive would be the likes of Amazon and Google, which presumably could afford to pay the telecos for priority access. Oh, and you can kiss the idea of online advertising good-bye as well, since the only way to get sufficient traffic to support an ad-based model would be to give the telecos a cut. However, the margins for most sites are too small to make that feasible.

Currently, there is no explicit legislation to prevent telecos from charging every Web site additional fees for access. Hence, the so-called net neutrality movement, which wants legislators to enact laws to prevent the telecos from fragmenting the Web and stifling innovation, restricting access to information, etc. (Incidentally, there is already technology out there to prioritize informational traffic on the Net--IPv6--but that is designed to address other Internet issues, such as how to accommodate, say, streaming video and the explosion of IP numbers.)

What's remarkable about the net neutrality issue is that some organizations, ignorant about how the Internet is structured, have come out against net neutrality. The latest to voice such a position is the technologically handicapped U.S. Department of Justice. On September 6, it filed a so-called ex parte paper with the FCC commenting on net neutrality. Essentially, that paper argued against preserving net neutrality for two reasons: 1) net neutrality laws would stifle innovation, and 2) allowing companies to create a multi-tiered service has worked in other businesses, like the U.S. Postal Service.

As to the first point, it is patently false. Net neutrality is the existing state of affairs and there's been plenty of innovation (no matter how much fun I poke at trendy marketing terms like Web 2.0). Maybe no one at the DOJ has used the Internet yet.

On the second point, it a false analogy. Aside from the questionable tactic of citing the U.S. Postal Service--which is barely hanging on by its fingernails and has failed to innovate since the days of the pony express--the Internet is really more analogous to the phone system. So following the DOJ's logic, eliminating net neutrality would be like allowing phone companies to not only charge for basic service, but also charge each and every one of us an extra fee to actually guarantee that our phones would ring every time someone called (rather than just ringing, well, some times).

So why should you care about net neutrality? Because if net neutrality were to end any business that uses the Web would be adversely affected and every person who uses the Web even just for e-mail could see the utility of the Internet severely curtailed.

To learn more about the issue, how it could affect you, and what you can do about it, I suggest visiting  Save the Internet. See also, "Fighting for Higher Phone Bills."

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Hello? Hello?

Lower phone bills? We're all for it. Well, almost all of us are for it. The folks at Verizon aren't too keen on it (neither are the folks at Qwest or AT&T for that matter). But the telecom world is changing, and lawsuits won't hold it back. Although they could result in much higher bills for you.

Struggling to come up with some way to stem the voice-over-the-Internet tide, Verizon has been suing Vonage for allegedly infringing on its patents, and Verizon won an initial judgement in March focusing on three extremely broad patents involving voice mail and how calls can be transferred over a public packet switched network (in other words, over the Internet to the plain old telephone lines). One point about the case, which is now under appeal until June, is that Verizon's patents appear to be too broad, potentially undermining the whole transition to voice over IP (VoIP) that is underway. 

Another point is that if Verizon prevails in the Vonage case, Verizon could initiate threats against other VoIP providers. It might mean that other firms would pay inflated licensing fees just to stave off litigation. And it would mean...you guessed it...higher phone bills for you and me. Witness the fact that Verizon's own VoIP service is substantially more expense than Vonage, even though Verizon owes many of the physical phone lines. (All Vonage owns are a lot of computer servers.)

As a side note, it's interesting to point out that the issue of "Net neutrality"--in other words leaving the basic Internet protocol technology and access to it the way it is--wasn't an issue until companies like AT&T and Qwest floated the idea that they might start charging Web sites for better access to the Internet. In other words, they would blockade the lines on which Internet traffic travels and thus wipe out small, online businesses while delivering a major blow to Google's business plans. (Not only would Google have to pay for access, but Google also has a VoIP play of its own called Google Talk.)

All of this is a way of trying to squeeze revenue out of what is a dying telecom business model. The days of charging for minutes or long distance calls is already over. The old teleco's just don't realize it yet.

For more on the changing telecom business, see my article on past mergers in U.S. News & World Report.

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