By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
WASHINGTON - Imagine a world where, even with blazing-fast Internet, some Web sites load painfully slowly.
And no matter how much you shell out for the speediest service you can get, some sites never even appear on the screen.
That's the concern of some Internet advocates if Congress does nothing to preserve so-called net neutrality.
While the term network neutrality, more commonly called "net neutrality," may produce blank stares from many people, the potential fallout if it is lost could affect everyone who uses the Internet, some experts have said.
Net neutrality argues that the networks behind the Internet are merely highways for moving information. There should be no priority given to one site over another, advocates say, and users should be able to get access to anything they want.
"The difference will be subtle," said Jon Dolan, assistant director of network services at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "As a consumer you're going to say, 'This site doesn't work as well as it should,'" and you might be inclined to use a competitor's faster site instead.
The concept of network neutrality has existed as something of an axiom of the Internet since its beginnings. It has been likened to the Internet's version of democracy, ensuring that everyone with a connection can get access to whatever information they want.
That sentiment is shared by some lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
The increasing debate in Internet circles comes as a one-year moratorium issued by the Federal Communications Commission is set to expire this summer. The temporary rule keeps Internet provider companies like Comcast and AT&T from charging other companies, like Yahoo! or Google, a premium fee to get their content delivered faster.
While some groups have warned of blocked pages and slow access to competing Web sites, the group Hands Off the Internet, which is backed by telecommunications companies, has another message expressing opposition to government-imposed net neutrality.
"The Internet blossomed and flourished in part because we kept it an unregulated medium," said Mike McCurry, former White House spokesman and now the co-chairman of Hands Off the Internet. "The ability of the government to guess right on what is going to happen is a crapshoot."
At the heart of the debate is bandwidth.
Bandwidth is a measure of how fast things move - that is, how quickly Web pages load and how quickly pictures in e-mail attachments download.
Paying an extra monthly fee for a faster cable Internet connection instead of a dial-up modem will help most things load faster. But on the other end of that connection, companies also need lots of bandwidth to speedily send their pages to Internet users all over the world.
Think of the difference as trying to find a pizza place at the end of a long dirt road versus one right off the freeway. Even if you pay $50,000 for a luxury car with a built-in map to give you directions, getting to the pizza restaurant down a crumbling gravel road will take longer and make you less likely to go there again.
Dolan had a similar analogy, using the package-shipping company United Parcel Service.
"If UPS wasn't allowed to use the freeway system, and had to get to you by all the back roads," Dolan said, "they would get to you eventually, they just wouldn't get to you overnight."
Such slow service would discourage customers from shipping with UPS, choosing someone who could do it faster, Dolan said. A similar situation online could shift patterns of which sites people visit.
Wyden introduced a bill in early March that would enshrine in law the basic principles of net neutrality, keeping all parts of the Internet open and accessible to everyone.
"The special interest groups are pulling out all the stops to ensure a two-tiered Internet that will benefit special interests at the expense of American consumers," Wyden said when he offered his legislation.
McCurry disputes that characterization, saying that the Internet needs to be more intelligently "managed."
Yes, there would be a "fast lane" for those who pay a premium, McCurry said, but the other lane would be anything but slow.
Business owners would not get "consigned to some slow lane" if they did not pay for premium access, he said. Rather, the Internet would operate as it does now, and no slower, since there is broad agreement that any broad changes should not degrade the experience for any users or businesses.
Jake Ortman, a Bend resident who runs the blog UtterlyBoring.com, sees both sides of the issue. Noting that consumers must pay more for faster Internet service, he doesn't think requiring the same of companies is so unreasonable.
"Somebody's got to pay for it," he said.
OSU's Dolan is not so sure that legislating the issue will fix the problem - he too worries about excessive government regulation. Dolan and McCurry agree that companies need to install more wires and fiber optic cables across the country to accommodate the growing demands being put on the Internet.
"Right now there is sufficient bandwidth to handle everything," McCurry said. "Someone's got to build out the Internet."