BROADBAND BILL OF RIGHTS 

The impending marriage of television and the Internet, consummated with the help of next-generation set-top boxes that will add online access to the cable industry's multi-channel offerings, promises to extend the reach of the Internet into millions of households. But at what cost? Will the Internet, historically an open, diverse, and democratic environment, fall under the sway of cable's closed, top-down architecture? Will our online choices effectively be limited to a handful of featured sites on the cable company's electronic program guide? Will the pay-per-view paradigm, in which premium fees are charged for special-interest and on-demand programming, be applied to the World Wide Web? Even at "discount" rates (for those who elect to add high-speed Internet access to their cable subscriptions, or who accept other "bundled" offerings), this may be too high a price to pay for broadband delivery. 
These are among the issues that must be addressed as the Internet evolves from a phone-line, PC-based communications system into the entertainment and e-commerce extravaganza known as interactive televisions (ITV). To the extent that ITV brings the Internet (at vastly increased speeds) to millions of households that lack PCs, it will prove beneficial. But we should not be asked to trade our online freedoms for the speed and simplicity of cable's broadband Internet. The democratic traditions of the original, "dial-up" Internet, in short, must be preserved in the broadband era.
To that end, and as a means of measuring the performance of cable companies against the standards of the open Internet, the Center for Digital Democracy offers this Broadband Bill of Rights, 10 fundamental principles for ensuring the future openness and diversity of the Internet. Although efforts to forecast the future of the Internet are often futile, we share the sobering assessment of The Economist, which expressed the fear recently that "…the last decade of the 20th century might come to be seen as an all-too-brief golden age of openness and innovation that was fatally undermined by short-termism and greed." Fortunately, there is still time to intervene in the design and deployment of the new broadband networks, and to make sure that the new system serves as effectively as it sells.
The Internet has long been characterized by the free flow of information, supported by the basic principles of openness (of access), equality (of data), diversity (of content), and freedom (of expression). Network growth and market forces alike will inevitably yield various embellishments on basic data delivery. Some of these variations will arise in response to traffic congestion and the need to distinguish among different data types; others will result from efforts to exploit the demand for premium service, including expedited transport using proprietary networks. But neither the evolution of networking technologies, nor the introduction of value-added services, should be permitted to undermine the fundamental openness of the Internet, either by creating artificial bottlenecks or otherwise constraining unnecessarily the free flow of network traffic. For these reasons, CDD recommends the adoption of the following 10 principles to maintain the basic open, democratic, nondiscriminatory character of the Internet.
1. Choice: Open-access regulations are needed to ensure that independent Internet service providers (ISPs) and content producers will be able to offer their services on all cable, DSL, and wireless platforms, enabling users to enjoy the same full range of programming via broadband that is now guaranteed in the dial-up Internet.
2. Nondiscrimination: While it may be necessary to arbitrate among competing claims on network resources, no transport-management schemes (e.g., policy-based routing) should be used simply to favor certain programming over other content, by artificially constraining "competitive" or nonaffiliated fare.
3. Privacy: Existing privacy regulations (e.g., the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, as amended by the Cable Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992) need to be extended to include all interactive media, regardless of the means of delivery, with oversight by the Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commissions.
4. Open Systems: The Internet's "end-to-end" architecture must be preserved, and to the extent that "walled gardens" offer only a subset of Internet content, they should be clearly labeled. So-called "managed content areas," designed to highlight a network owner's proprietary or affiliated content, should include clearly marked "exit paths" to the Internet at large.
5. Interoperability: Set-top boxes, which are poised to become one of the most important household appliances, should be both nonproprietary (i.e., interoperable among cable systems) and transparent (i.e., user configurable). Subscribers should not be expected to host "black boxes" (including hard-disk video recorders that surreptitiously reserve a portion of disk space for targeted advertising) as part of their ITV implementations.
6. Public Interest Obligations: The public-interest principle, more often than not honored in the breach in the world of broadcast, and still under consideration for digital television (DTV) broadcasters, should inform the world of ITV as well. A small portion of the extra capacity that broadcasters have gained in the switch to DTV, as well as the enhancements that cable operators will offer under ITV, should be devoted to community-based information al and educational purposes.
7. Civic Content: The broadband revolution is too valuable an opportunity to be squandered solely on entertainment and commerce. The technology should be harnessed, in some small measure, to serve the needs of civil society, including enhanced campaign coverage, community forums, cultural programming, and noncommercial information exchange.
8. Educational Opportunities: The new interactive media of broadband should serve all aspects of lifelong learning, meeting the educational needs of young and old alike through pre-school programming, supplementary classroom material, distance learning, vocational training, and other educational fare. 
9. Children's Programming: The meager requirements for children's programming on television (currently three hours of educational and informational programming per week) should be supplemented in the broadband era. Existing protections against excessive and misleading advertising during children's TV programs, similarly, should serve as a guide for advertising in online programming for children and youth.
10. Digital Divide: Even as we close the gap that separates the connected from the unconnected, we must make certain that new, more subtle forms of digital inequity do not arise, in which the haves vs. the have-nots are replaced by the haves vs. the have-mores. Accordingly, Universal Service requirements should be updated to include advanced telecommunications services.

- Center for Digital Democracy

TALE OF TWO BROADBAND CASES 
ILLUSTRATES BATTLE OVER NET'S FUTURE

The continuing battle over whether broadband will be a democratic and competitive medium was the subject of two recent federal court decisions. But what both cases illustrate is that the nation's telephone and cable industries want to extend their monopolistic business models onto the Internet.
In a blow to community control over broadband, the U.S. Supreme Court on 24 March 2004 ruled that states can prohibit municipal governments from operating their own telecommunications networks. In siding with the telephone industry, the court's 8-1 decision favors the huge corporate interests that have waged a campaign against community ownership of telecommunications, including broadband. The court's ruling came in the consolidated cases of Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, FCC v. Missouri Municipal League, and Southwestern Bell Telephone v. Missouri Municipal League.
Telephone companies have gone state to state to pressure too-often compliant state legislators into passing legislation that prohibits communities from establishing their own telecommunications service. Municipal networks, as they are sometimes called, can provide their communities with enhanced service at lower costs. The focus of the Supreme Court's review was on the interpretation of the wording in a provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and whether that act permitted states to preempt municipal provision of telephone and broadband services. 
But the nation's telephone lobby-including SBC, Verizon, Bell South and the United States Telephone Association-were not interested in legal definitions. Rather, they were concerned with preventing the emergence of community-controlled broadband. For example, in its court brief, SBC decried the idea that a small town in Missouri actually wanted to use some fiber capacity to serve its own telecommunications needs (thus giving the city more control over its voice and data network and offering its citizens cost savings over the phone company's residential rates).
The case began in 1996 when Missouri passed a law prohibiting local governments from offering telecommunications services. The Missouri Municipal League, representing local governments, asked the FCC to intervene, citing the 1996 Telecommunications Act's encouragement of all entities, presumably including cities, to compete in the telecom market. The FCC, unfortunately, failed to support the cities. The telephone industry, meanwhile, has been steadily lobbying state lawmakers to pass similar bills. So far there are restrictions on municipal networks in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
State bills and this new federal court decision are designed to prevent or weaken a community's ability to provide broadband and other telecom or cable services. They aim to undermine or prevent broadband from emerging as a public utility, offering the benefits of the Internet to all in a cost-effective and democratic fashion. The cable industry is also pursuing a political campaign against such community networks. Recently, Comcast joined with SBC in a well-funded ad campaign that undermined public support for a community network serving three small towns in Illinois. According to the Tri-City Broadband Coalition, both Comcast and SBC distorted the record. Cities and their supporters will now be turning to Congress for legislation that can restore community ownership of broadband. 
Meanwhile, in a separate court decision, the cable industry's lobbying effort to undermine the Internet's open architecture (by denying Internet service providers access to cable networks) was temporarily derailed on 1 April 2004. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a decision by one its panels that ruled against a recent FCC policy backed by the cable lobby. By refusing to review the case, the Ninth Circuit upheld a decision ruling that the FCC should regulate cable broadband with the same safeguards required of DSL networks, including choice of ISP and nondiscriminatory service. The cable industry has been threatened by the Internet since the development of the World Wide Web, recognizing that cable's monopoly business model of controlling both conduit and content would be challenged if any user/viewer could easily download all forms of multimedia content. Cable found a valuable ally in FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who declared in 2002 that cable would not be required to operate in the "end-to-end" open network tradition of the dial-up Internet. ISPs and public interest groups, including CDD, took the commission to court. The Media Access Project represented CDD, Consumer Federation of America, and Consumers Union in what was called the "Brand X" case (the name of the Santa Monica-based ISP calling for the FCC rule to be overturned). The cable lobby is now pressuring the FCC to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.