The first report issued is a technical study commissioned by the ACLU and prepared by a Maryland-based telecommunications engineering consulting firm, the Columbia Telecommunications Corporation (CTC). The second report is a brief ACLU policy analysis.
"Many people don't realize that if current policies continue, a handful of big monopolies will gain power over information flowing through the Internet," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program. "Freedom of speech doesn't mean much if the forums where that speech takes place are not free."
According to the ACLU, the ongoing conversion by consumers from a dial-up Internet service to broadband connections is threatening the future of free speech on the Internet. With dial-up, Internet access is provided over a medium that provides open, equal access to all -- the telephone system.
But with the shift to cable, Internet access must be adapted to a medium that has been far more subject to centralized control. The danger, according to the ACLU, is that the Internet will come under private control.
"The path out of this predicament is clear," said Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which collaborated in preparation of the reports. "First, the FCC must act to preserve the Internet's open, common-carrier status in the cable context. Second, citizens and community groups must play an aggressive role in shaping the future of the high-speed Internet, especially ensuring that local networks offer a diversity of broadband content and services."
The report by the CTC includes an in-depth examination of two cable systems in Portland, Ore., and Tacoma, Wash., and interviews with officials at two ISPs that have been excluded from many cable broadband systems.
Among the report's findings and recommendations:
- There are no insurmountable technical barriers to open access on most U.S. cable systems.
- Broadband cable companies should adopt a "public interest architecture" based on principles such as maximizing consumer choice and competition among ISPs.
- The dominant emerging technique for allowing multiple ISPs on cable Internet networks, which the CTC calls "re-branding and resale of wholesale services," actually leaves the cable operator in control of the product, creating only the illusion of real competition and consumer choice, and is not true open access.
"Our finding is that there are no technical reasons why the policies backed by the ACLU and other advocates cannot be adopted," said Dr. Andrew Afflerbach, vice president of the CTC and an author of the report.
The ACLU said its policy analysis explains how the government is failing to extend to the broadband Internet crucial regulatory protections that help keep today's Internet free and open to all. Unless the government changes course, the ACLU said, a handful of large corporations will have both the incentive and the ability to interfere with the free flow of information across the network.
"Protecting free expression on the Internet is a high priority for the ACLU," said Steinhardt. "In the same way that we have battled Internet censorship by the government, we will also fight to make sure that private corporations aren't allowed to get into a position where they can dictate what we read and say online."
The American Civil Liberties Union
