The next net neutrality showdown, on the edge of the network

The deck chairs are being shuffled all over Washington this month, but some familiar net neutrality legislation may be brought up once again. This time, one of the nation's biggest content providers is ready to face it down.

Perhaps the entire success of CE manufacturers' plans to endow their HDTV displays with built-in IPTV channels, linked directly to services such as Netflix through the Internet, is based on the notion that those displays will soon have faster access to less compressed, richer high-definition content than they do today. In fact, the content delivery networks (CDN) that enable movies and other high-bandwidth content to appear faster, if at all, are looking at ways to engineer the Internet itself to reduce the number of hops required to deliver items such as movies.

But if CDNs have exclusive access to an Internet fast lane, then that's a problem for supporters of net neutrality who argue that no one should be able to pay for the right to use a fatter, faster pipe. Problem is, if that principle is codified into law, then there may never be such a pipe for anyone to use, and those exclusive IPTV services that we saw at CES 2009 last week may end up being too slow to be viable.

The showdown may at last come to a head during the first half of this year. Last week, Verizon laid down the gauntlet by boldly announcing the creation of its Partner Port Network -- a clearly marked fast lane for CDNs, and the end of any pretense of neutrality at one of the nation's largest backbone providers.

"With these kinds of connections, content owners can deliver video and other online content to consumers quickly and reliably, which can mean less jitter in video files," stated Verizon Senior Vice President for Media Relations Eric Rabe, in a post to his company's policy blog last week. "It's more efficient for Verizon, which means we can pass on savings to the content owners too... It's another sign that Verizon is out to assure that our networks are a step ahead of all others in serving customers' increasing appetite for multimedia services."

Verizon's move pre-empts any attempt at regulating or rendering illegal the creation of such pipelines by the new Congress, where some of the most vocal opponents of the notion have been recently elevated in rank. Among them is Sen. Daniel Inouye (D - Hawaii), the incoming chairman of the Commerce Committee. Three years ago, Sen. Inouye co-sponsored a bill authored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R - Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D - N.D.), that would have effectively illegalized any effort by private industry to offer exclusive access to faster Internet pipes, for a surcharge.

That bill went nowhere in the Republican-led Commerce Committee of the time, led by Sen. Ted Stevens (R - Alaska). It could have gone further after Democrats took back control of both houses of Congress, though it may conceivably go further now that Inouye -- criticized over the past two years for appearing to move slowly on this issue -- has the opportunity to be seen as a net neutrality principal architect.

In lieu of decisive legislation in the previous term, the Commerce Committee under Sen. Ed Markey (D - Mass.) debated an alternate bill, called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. Despite its lofty title, the bill essentially referred the whole matter of pipelining to the Federal Communications Commission for a series of public hearings. That might not be perceived so much as a bad idea by other Democrats with Julius Genachowski, technology advisor to the President-Elect, the almost certain nominee to chair the next FCC.

But an even better idea may be to avoid involving the FCC at all, especially if lawmakers wish to avoid the debate over whether the creation of a fast lane is an issue of free speech over public media (and thus under the FCC's purview) or an issue of fair trade among willing participants (thus falling under the Federal Trade Commission's watch). That could be done if Inouye were interested in resurrecting something closer to the Snowe/Dorgan language.

Next: Pay no attention to that fast lane behind the curtain...