Thanks!

What do we want? Media reform. And when do we want it? Now. As in, now that we have a champion of media reform headed to the White House.

Along the campaign trail, in recent speeches, and in his technology agenda, President-elect Barack Obama has made big promises on media and technology issues. We finally have an opportunity to see real change in our media landscape – from diversity in our news to safeguarding Net Neutrality.

At any moment, Obama will announce his pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, and we hope he chooses someone that shares his commitment to the public interest. Today, we sent a letter to Obama – signed by over 100 individuals and organizations, representing millions of people – urging him to choose a candidate who will embrace and enact the policy proposals he’s already outlined.

Some of the people and organizations who are stepping up to support the Obama media agenda include members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and My Morning Jacket as well as organizations like SEIU, NOW, DailyKos, the Hip Hop Caucus and hundreds more.

The letter includes six of Obama’s best quotes on media reform to remind him that his words have not fallen on deaf ears; we’ve been listening, and now we’re watching to make sure these promises aren’t hollow.

What did Obama say? Enough to bring a tear to the eye of any media reformer battered during the last administration. Here are the choicest sound bytes:

• Protecting an Open Internet: To “take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality” and “protect the Internet’s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy.”
• Promoting Universal, Affordable Broadband: To see that “in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online” by bringing “true broadband to every community in America.”
• Diversifying Media Ownership: To create “the diverse media environment that federal law requires and the country deserves.”
• Renewing Public Media: To foster “the next generation of public media,” and “support the transition of existing public broadcasting entities and help renew their founding vision in the digital world.”
• Spurring Economic Growth: To “strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world” and leverage technology “to grow the economy, create jobs, and solve our country’s most pressing problems.”
• Ensuring Open Government: To reverse “policies that favor the few against the public interest,” close “the revolving door between government and industry,” and achieve “a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America’s citizens.”

Obama has already made the call to create a more vibrant, diverse and democratic media system and to deliver the benefits of the open Internet and new technology to all Americans. Now he simply has to appoint someone at the FCC who will carry out his mandate.You can read the letter and add your name here.

We are now on the cusp of making history for an open Internet. But don’t tell that to the Wall Street Journal, which today published an article that portrayed the movement for Net Neutrality as losing steam.

Say what?

In addition to the millions of Americans who have taken a stand in support of Net Neutrality, we have an incoming president who has pledged to “take a back seat to no one” in his commitment to Net Neutrality.

Morevover, several new members of Congress pledged their allegiance to Net Neutrality while getting elected. They all agree that the Internet should remain free and open to all users — that we should be able to visit any Web content without network operators or others blocking, impairing or degrading our connection.

Journal Story: Much Ado About Nothing

It’s no surprise then, as we are about to make history, that powerful forces are aligning to stop this fundamental change from happening. The Wall Street Journal story paints support for Net Neutrality as ebbing, confusing a Google plan to utilize “edge caching” technology as a fundamental violation of Net Neutrality by one of its biggest corporate supporters.

According to Google, the “secret” program referred to by the Journal is nothing more a content caching technology that has been going on for years. There is no prioritization, they write, nor is there an ISP choosing fast lanes and slow lanes. Hundreds of companies do this to move content geographically closer to end-users.

Google has been a moving target for phone and cable industry lobbyists and their hired shills. “The Wall Street Journal is playing vessel for the latest attack,” writes Karl Bode of Broadband Reports.

“It’s a nice win for whichever cable company leaked the news as it paints Google as a hypocrite ahead of next year’s renewed fight over network neutrality legislation,” Bode continues. “However, the Wall Street Journal is intentionally distorting Google’s proposal for political effect.”

(David Isenberg goes one step further, saying the Journal story set off his special detector, and Wired’s Nicholas Thompson takes the story apart piece by piece.)

The Public Mandate

If Google or any other tech company were secretly violating Net Neutrality, there would be an absolute and cataclysmic backlash from the grassroots and netroots who have made Net Neutrality a signature issue in 21st Century politics. The Internet community would come crashing down on their heads like Minutemen on Benedict Arnold.

Those covering this issue love to portray Net Neutrality as clash of corporate titans. But it’s not up to AT&T, Comcast — or Google — whether we have Net Neutrality. It’s up to the public, and we’re not giving up the fight for a free and open Internet.

The Journal story also implies that President-elect Barack Obama has softened his support for Net Neutrality. Where’s the evidence of that? Oddly, the journal doesn’t actually ask Obama or his transition team to comment.

Obama in the Driver’s Seat

We do know this though. The president-elect has made numerous public statements on the campaign trail and published a detailed policy document placing Net Neutrality as his top priority. He’s explicitly opposed paid “quality of service” arrangements and was also a co-sponsor of the Dorgan-Snowe bill that is the strongest Net Neutrality legislation ever proposed.

Contrary to claims of the Journal that Net Neutrality forces are receding, we are actually closer now than ever before to victory. We have arrived at the moment when Net Neutrality has its greatest appeal, clearest need, and best chance of becoming law.

Our opponents will try to divide and distract us. But now is not the time to retreat but to move forward.

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UPDATE: On Monday, SavetheInternet.com asked its activists to write President-elect Obama and ask him to re-affirm his commitment to Net Neutrality. Later in the day he did. Read the report at “Talking Points Memo.”

Today is Human Rights Day, and we should reflect on the Internet. Why? While the mainstream media routinely ignore human rights stories, people across the world have been able to harness the Internet to tell important but underreported stories and launch successful human rights campaigns.

Human rights and advocacy organizations have used the Internet to drum up public support and action on human rights campaigns. The international human rights group Breakthrough has creatively used YouTube to educate people about the U.S.’s disastrous deportation system; thousands have viewed their video animation series, “Don’t Deport Me, Scotty.”

Amnesty International consistently uses the Internet to help everyday people act against stopping torture, preventing executions and protecting human rights defenders.

In response to the anti-gay ballot initiatives in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas, a massive “grassweb” effort dubbed “Day Without a Gay: Call in Gay,” was launched online. Then there’s the organization NothingButNets.net, which is asking the world to donate life-saving bed nets to help protect people from malaria in refugee camps with the click of a mouse.

Online Web sites and bloggers have stepped up to fill the gap left by the mainstream media’s failure to cover human rights abuses. Project Censored, which finds the top 25 stories that have gone underreported, ignored, misrepresented or censored by the U.S. corporate media, includes several stories about human rights abuses in its 2009 list. Many of the stories were published online. And when dozens of reporters were arrested during the Republican National Convention and the mainstream media turned a blind eye, the journalism project The UpTake was there, providing up-to-the-minute videos online.

All of this vital work is made possible by one guiding principle on the Internet: Net Neutrality. Anyone with a high-speed Internet connection and a computer can create content, send a letter of protest to a national leader, donate to a human rights organization, or launch their own campaign. Free from discrimination online, we’re also free to fight for the human rights struggles that speak to us, and to better the lives of the people we’ve been introduced to thanks to the power of the Internet.

In a Saturday morning YouTube address, President-elect Barack Obama gave the nation a first glimpse at his administration’s stimulus plan - and connecting everyone to the Internet was a main route on his roadmap to economic recovery.

“Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President,” he said. “Because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

That closing the digital divide ranks so highly on Obama’s economic agenda might come as a surprise to some.

But like rural electrification and Interstate highway systems in the 20th century, Internet connectivity should be thought of as infrastructure that will light the way to 21st-century prosperity.

And it is not merely a matter of national pride. Getting more people connected is an issue with life-or-death consequences. Just 24 hours before Obama’s speech, the U.S. Labor Department released figures showing an alarming unemployment rate of 6.7 percent. More than 533,000 jobs were lost November alone — the worst job loss in 34 years.

The Internet could prove to be our path to economic salvation. A 2007 study by the Brookings Institution and MIT found that a one-digit increase in U.S. per-capita broadband penetration equates to an additional American 300,000 jobs. If our broadband penetration were as high as a country like Denmark, for example, we could expect more than 3 million additional jobs in America.

Making Good

In making this pledge to connect everyone, Obama has bravely stepped into an Internet void left by his predecessor. Over the past eight years, the United States has fallen from fourth to 15th in the world in terms of high-speed Internet adoption. More than 40 percent of American homes are not connected to high-speed Internet services.

The Bush administration has been in the habit of making high-minded promises about the Internet while delivering massive handouts to the cable and phone giants who seem more interested in padding profits than building out connections to those who need them most.

In his Saturday address, Obama promised to install computers in classrooms and extend high-speed Internet to under-served areas. These goals echo those expressed by candidate Obama on the trail in 2008 and on his transition Web site www.change.gov.

President Bush made a similar sounding pledge in 2004 without delivering. The challenge for Obama — and all of us — is to dig into the details and really get the work done.

Lighting the Way

At Free Press, we have some ideas. Our policy shop just released a guide to media reform for the new administration and Congress, which can help forge a path to a better Internet.

The document calls upon the next Federal Communications Commission to set new speed standards for broadband; collect meaningful data on deployment; transition the Universal Service Fund toward digital infrastructure; and open networks to stimulate broadband competition.

Reforming the ways we allocate spectrum for Internet use is also a centerpiece. New ideas about sharing vacant airwaves and prying open existing networks should be prioritized. With more Americans using cell phones than the Internet, we need to make sure that our evolving mobile experience includes an open Internet as much as possible.

The Free Press document urges the new administration to lay the groundwork in Congress for new telecommunications law that recognizes the growing convergence of communications platforms.

“The existing statutes were designed for a bygone era — when different services and technologies had different regulatory frameworks,” it states. “Now we are in the era … where virtually all media and communications move on the same digital networks. The law must catch up with technology and the market.”

Internet for Everyone

Obama seems to get it more than his predecessor, and his screen-side chat strikes a hopeful note. Sadly, there is still a huge mass of Americans who couldn’t get online to hear it.

On the same day of Obama’s YouTube pledge, InternetforEveryone.org — a broad-based initiative to connect every American to a fast, open and affordable Internet — had its first interactive town hall meeting to address this problem.

Hundreds gathered in Los Angeles to discuss ways to close the digital divide. This discussion will be combined with feedback from upcoming town hall meetings and delivered to the Obama administration and Congress as a tangible plan of action.

Obama is going to need to listen to those beyond the Beltway to best build a better Internet for everyone.

His pledge gives us the chance to have a long overdue public conversation about what the future of the Internet should look like. This is where the rubber meets the road on the information superhighway — and it’s Obama’s best chance to deliver on his promises of change for millions.

In case there was any question about what the American public wants from a new Federal Communications Commission, it’s clear now.

More than 9,000 people and counting have voted on the top three qualifications they most want in President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for FCC chair. Obama is expected to announce his pick for the office at any moment.

Outnumbering eight other choices by a wide margin, voters said that enforcing Net Neutrality, breaking up media conglomerates, and stopping propaganda, fake news and radio payola should be the top three priorities of any candidate for the FCC position.

You can view the full results here.

The poll is part of a national campaign to pressure Obama to hold true to his campaign promises to make media in America more open, diverse and democratic. This week, Free Press placed a “help wanted” ad on behalf of the American people in four influential Washington publications to remind the incoming administration that the new chair must put the needs of Main Street before Wall Street.

The ads appeared in the classified sections of the Washington Post, Washington Times, Politico, The Hill, Craigslist and Ars Technica.

Free Press will be delivering the results of the poll to Obama’s FCC transition team soon, but it’s not too late to cast your vote. Already done it? Get others to vote too by spreading the word. We now have a widget available that you can embed in a blog post or on the side bar of your Web site. And be sure to keep posting your nominations for the new FCC chair in the comment thread below.

Antonio Reyes and Julian Rosas grew up together in California’s San Fernando Valley. Now 17 and seniors in high school, the two friends are beginning to fill out college applications. Antonio wants to be a pediatrician, while Julian is considering computer engineering.

But Antonio has one distinct advantage: He has high-speed Internet access at home. Julian––whose family can’t afford a connection––can only get online at school, when one of his working parents can drive him to the library, or at a local youth center, the Youth Speak! Collective, where I met the teenagers. The collective is a nonprofit organization that works to empower “at-risk” youth.

The restricted Internet access makes doing homework and applying for colleges especially difficult for Julian. “It kinda sucks,” he says. “I can’t go online anytime I want. I have to work twice as hard just to turn something in.”

Julian is one of millions of offline Americans who now have to work harder to function in an online world. According to the Census Bureau, more than 16 million Californians lack a high-speed connection. Whether because people can’t afford a computer or high-speed Internet, don’t have the training and skills to navigate the Web, or have no broadband options in their community, the digital divide––the gap between the Internet haves and have-nots––is glaring.

Connected folks can’t remember what it’s like not to check the weather in seconds, order a book from Amazon, or answer a nagging question using Wikipedia. In the United States and beyond, we demand constant connectivity to participate economically, socially and politically. Yet we’ve taken few steps as a nation to ensure everyone can meet this demand. Yes, the federal government’s E-rate program, which pays for school and library Internet connections, has been in place for years. But this is a far cry from making Internet access affordable and available to all Americans.

Sadly, we’re operating in a two-tier society, where lack of Internet access is compounding issues of poverty and social injustice. More than 40 percent of all U.S. homes are not connected to the Internet or use slow “dial-up” technology, according to a 2007 U.S. Census Bureau survey.

Just between Julian and his friends, the difference a high-speed connection makes is astounding. Both Julian and Antonio have family living outside the United States. Antonio easily chats online with his relatives in Nicaragua several times a week.

On the other hand, the only chance Julian gets to talk to his family in Mexico City is while he can use the computer at school, or during limited hours at the library or youth center.

The Internet has offered young people an unprecedented ability to innovate, create, and circumnavigate the closed doors of the established media and entertainment industry, allowing them to churn out original content by the minute. Rafael Cazares, another 17-year-old I met at the Collective in Pacoima, has been captivated by Anime videos and is now making his own.

“I got into those, and I right away started using Windows Media Player and started making my videos and posting them [on YouTube],” Rafael says. “Even though I have one subscriber, who is my friend, it’s worth it because I’m just learning more to maybe pursue a career in making videos.”

“Life is not like the old days,” Rafael says, because everyone relies on the Internet. “If you’re curious about something and you want to know about it, go to Google, type it down and it’s there.”

Listening to Rafael, Julian says quietly, “It sounds fun… As for me, I have to go to the library and just look for the book, which is harder.”

Seventeen-year-old Jorge Martinez, who says he’s fortunate to have high-speed Internet at home, echoes Julian’s thoughts. “Everything revolves around the Internet and things will continue to revolve around the Internet,” he says. “I could send you a message and you could be across the world and you’d get it in seconds. Technology is just … wow.”

Along with using the Internet to learn guitar online, Jorge has chatted with people across the globe, which he says has expanded his worldview. Recently, he met a Kuwaiti through an online game.

“I asked, ‘What time is it over there?’ Jorge said. “And he told me the time difference. And I asked if he ever saw U.S. soldiers and he said ‘Yeah, they wave all the time.’ It was kind of interesting. I had in my head that everyone there didn’t really like [U.S. soldiers].”

Noemi Rodriguez, who teaches all four teens in a college-credit sociology class at the Youth Speak! Collective, said it upsets her when one of her students doesn’t have Internet access. And not just because it is harder for them to do their homework.

“A lot of the material online, like independent newspapers, I find it better than what you find in the stores,” she said. “You watch the news and every channel is the same thing over and over again. The youth need to be aware of different ideas and different beliefs.”

But until we get Julian and millions of others connected, we’re relegating much of our population to the bottom of the barrel—unable to read, watch and listen to what the rest of us have at our fingertips. Without Internet access, Julian’s computer engineering prospects are a distant dream, and low-paying, low-skilled work a likely reality for this soon-to-be-graduate. The message we’re sending to our young people is tragic.

The detrimental social and economic effects of a partially connected America are already beginning to show. As the economy spirals, America’s ability to maintain a leading edge and stay competitive will continue to wane if the digital divide persists. The birthplace of the Internet, the United States now ranks 22nd in world rankings of broadband adoption, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

Building a truly connected America is possible. Already, President-elect Barack Obama has some good ideas. He’s made widespread broadband deployment a major component of his technology agenda; his platform pledges to achieve this goal through reforms such as better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum.

At the same time, a growing alliance of public interest organizations and industry groups are banding together through a national initiative called InternetforEveryone.org to push the new administration to act on Obama’s promises. The coalition is holding its first public town meeting Dec. 6 in Los Angeles to discuss how to get open, fast and affordable Internet to all Americans. (Full disclosure: Free Press, the nonprofit media reform group for which I work, is part of this initiative.)

For his part, Rafael has his own ideas about the future of the Internet.

“It would be great if they created a worldwide Wi-Fi, where you have your laptop and you can access the Internet without having to have the modem connected to your computer,” Rafael said. “And [the government should] lower the price on laptops and computers so everyone can get one.”

This article was first publised by In These Times.

Fourteen-year-old Lily Huerta wants to be a veterinarian. Or maybe a doctor. Or even a lawyer. She says she’ll decide later, when she’s older.

But right now, Lily is struggling just to do her homework. She doesn’t have Internet access at home, and can only use the Internet for small chunks of time at a local community center – the All People’s Christian Center in Los Angeles.

“A lot of kids get a good grade because of the research they do on the Internet,” Lily told me during a recent trip to L.A. as part of the America OffLine project. “For me, I might get a lower grade because I don’t have Internet access at home. So I can’t get the good grades that I want to achieve and make my parents proud of me.”

Tired of rushing research projects, Lily desperately wants Internet access at home. Unfortunately, her family can’t afford the cost of a high-speed Internet connection, and Lily is now among the millions of people across the country who are being left out of an increasingly digital world.

This Saturday, Lily will be talking about her digital struggles as one of the featured speakers at a public town hall meeting in L.A. sponsored by InternetforEveryone.org. The initiative is bringing together public interest organizations from the ACLU to Common Cause and industry groups from Facebook to Skype to push the incoming Obama administration to get high-speed Internet to every home and business in America. The meeting will be the first of several held across the country to bring people together to talk about how to address America’s digital challenges.

Right now, the United States lacks a national broadband plan, and the country has fallen to 22nd in the world in terms of high-speed Internet adoption. With a new administration in Washington, we have the opportunity to restore America’s global leadership in the information economy.

High-speed Internet is one of the most transformative technologies in human history. In little more than a decade, broadband access has completely changed how we do business, engage with our government, teach our children, and interact with the rest of the world.

Having a connection to a fast and affordable Internet is no longer a luxury – it’s a public necessity.

In Lily’s world, not having access means she’s missing out on an entire social world.

“I can’t chat on the Internet with my friends and sometimes they have big news –‘Oh yeah, we’re having a party. Do you want to come?’ But when the party passes, they’ll say, ‘You didn’t get the e-mail?’ Yeah, e-mail. I don’t really have Internet at my house.”

And although Lily has basic computer skills, she says not using a computer on a daily basis makes navigating the Net difficult.

“[Teachers] might teach you something, but if you don’t have a computer or Internet at home, you won’t be able to practice it and get better at it and remember how to do it.”

Lily says she lives in a dangerous neighborhood, where gangs and violence are prevalent. Her mother, Julia Huerta, doesn’t want Lily on the streets at night, hopping from the library to friends’ houses to use the Internet. Having a connection at home would ease her worry, she said – and help with her own struggles doing without the Internet.

Julia works at the Center’s after-school program for 4th and 5th graders. Like Lily, she finds herself rushing to use the Center’s overburdened computer lab to look up activities for her kids.

“If I had Internet at home, I could do my work at home and be ready [before arriving at the Center],” Julia said.

Getting one nation online is not going to be an easy task – and it’s one of the questions attendees at this Saturday’s meeting will be discussing. Some of the other questions the meeting will focus on are:

• How do we expand consumer choice and lower costs for Internet services?
• How can the Internet be a catalyst for economic growth, jobs and prosperity?
• How do we preserve the Internet’s level playing field so everyone can access the content, applications and services of their choice?
• What roles should be played by the federal government, local governments, private industry and everyday citizens to build a better Internet?

The answers from the L.A. meeting will be combined with feedback from other meetings and a digital forum and delivered to the Obama administration and congressional leaders as a people-powered guide to building a better America.

For her part, Julia thinks the government can help by subsidizing Internet access or lowering prices for computers and connections.

However it’s achieved, Julia knows that Internet access would change her daughter’s life. “I hope my daughter to be the best in the world. She is going to be the best dancer. A good doctor. Whatever she wants.”

The Denver Post today urged a new FCC to get its mind off of “buttocks” and onto more serious issues like Net Neutrality.

The editorial board was referring to a case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals, in which the agency’s top legal minds are trying to determine whether some bare cheeks featured on a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” warrant indecency fines for ABC.

“This is the place to which the FCC under the Bush administration has brought us,” they write. “We are hopeful that Barack Obama will appoint a new FCC chair with a moderate sensibility and a healthier respect for constitutional issues.” Obama is expected to appoint a new FCC chair at any moment.

The incoming chair will face more heady concerns in the coming years, including protecting Net Neutrality, reversing runaway media consolidation and stopping pay-for-play news and propaganda.

Thousands of people have already identified these as among their priorities for the new Commission, according to an online poll posted on Tuesday.

According to the latest count, these are voters’ top four priorities:

• Protect an open Internet by enforcing Net Neutrality
• Break up media conglomerates and return stations to local control
• Stop propaganda, fake news and radio payola
• Open more public airwaves to high-speed Internet access

The good news is that the incoming Obama administration’s tech and Internet agenda echoes the public’s wish-list. In fact, protecting Net Neutrality is number one on Obama’s list of tech to-dos.

To help the new administration navigate the political minefield between campaign promises and legislative reality, Free Press’ policy shop just released a presidential road map for media reform.

“Leadership on [Net Neutrality] will settle the question of the future of the open Internet, ending several years of rancorous fighting that pit consumer advocates and tech companies against network owners,” according to Free Press. “The Obama administration should move swiftly to put Net Neutrality into the law as a cornerstone of 21st century telecommunications policy.”

As for the current FCC’s obsession with the occasional flash of indecency, it’s time to turn the other cheek and get to more important work ahead.

Wanted: a leader who understands that the “open” Internet doesn’t mean a burst pipe, thinks a diverse media is more than just a few minority network anchors, and isn’t afraid to battle chest-thumping corporate lobbyists to protect the public’s interest.

Tell Obama What You Want the New FCC Chair To Do

Alright, so we may not be doing the hiring, but President-elect Barack Obama is, and we the public need to hold the president-elect to his campaign promises as he picks the next head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Obama will soon announce his choice to lead the FCC, a decision that will influence every facet of our media system – from media consolidation to broadband access and cell phone innovation.

Obama has pledged to make media in America more open, diverse and democratic, but will he stand by this promise in the face of intense insider pressure to choose a more industry friendly FCC chairman?

This week, Free Press placed a “help wanted” ad on behalf of the American people in four influential Washington publications to remind the incoming administration that the new chair must put the needs of Main Street before Wall Street. This means delivering on Obama’s campaign promises to enforce Net Neutrality, build out broadband services to the tens of millions of Americans still off the grid, and to stop the gobbling up of local media outlets by massive corporate owners like Clear Channel, Disney and News Corp.

The ads appeared in the classified sections of the Washington Post, Washington Times, Politico and The Hill.

“We’re just doing our part to make sure that the next head of the FCC is looking out for the public interest,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press. “The person who takes this job will play a major role in transforming the media and shaping the future of the Internet. We need someone whose priorities match the public’s demands.”

The new FCC chair will be charged with bringing American media into the 21st century, which is why Obama must also hear from you before deciding.

Vote now on the top three qualifications you most want for the FCC chair. We’ll compile the votes and send them on to Obama’s FCC transition team.

The FCC has been held hostage by corporate interests for too long. Now is our best chance to change course and make real the possibility of universal broadband access, an open Internet, and more locally controlled radio and TV.

Let’s speak out to make sure we find the right person for the job. Leave your nominations for the new FCC chair in the comment thread below.

Our northern neighbors are as embroiled in Internet battles as we are in the United States. Canadians are fighting for high-speed Internet access across the country and to preserve Net Neutrality.

Last week, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC, their version of the FCC) decided that the ISP Bell Canada did not have to stop it’s “traffic-shaping” practices.

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers, an alliance of small, independent ISPs, had asked the Commission to investigate Bell, saying their network management practices were discriminatory.

Steve Anderson, founder of SaveOurNet.ca, told Free Press that the ruling was bad news for Canada’s open Internet. “The ruling establishes that the dominant ISPs are allowed to throttle the Internet services of even those competing independent ISPs that use their network,” he said. “This means that Canada has less ISP competition, and in some markets, no access to an open, non-discriminatory network.”

SaveOurNet.ca is asking for people to write the CRTC in support of Net Neutrality.

But while the ruling was disappointing, it also put Net Neutrality issues firmly on the CRTC’s radar; it plans to examine ISP traffic management practices and will hold a public hearing on July 6, 2009, in Gatineau, Quebec.

“This [hearing is] something Canadian Net Neutrality advocates have been calling for, and should be seen as a win for the open Internet,” Anderson said. “This hearing is where biggest and most critical Net Neutrality battle will be fought.”

Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor, wrote about the implications of the commission’s decision in his blog:

“Today’s CRTC decision is not the final word on net neutrality in Canada, but rather the first word on it. The Commission itself has opened the door to broader hearings on the issue next year, which may come alongside the new media hearings that also offer the opportunity to raise net neutrality concerns. Moreover, if the Commission comes to the conclusion that these practices are consistent with current Canadian law, there is the likelihood of growing calls from within Parliament to change the law.”

And while activists push for an open Internet, public interest, civic and industry groups in Canada also have launched an initiative called InternetforEveryone.ca to push for a national broadband plan. “For Canada to regain its lost status as a world leader, it needs a national strategy for getting citizens online that is accessible, inclusive, open and innovative,” says the Web site.

The initiative mirrors the U.S. effort at InternetforEveryone.org, an initiative organized by Free Press that is holding its first public meeting about the future of the Internet in Los Angeles on Dec. 6.