Visions of Net Neutrality: Ben Scott

From yesterday’s Freedom2Connect conference in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Watch this space for the rest of the conference as I get it copy edited.)

Ben Scott, policy director Free Press

We have 230,000 members.  We do public education on communications policy issues. I lead the office here, which is an advocacy group on the Hill and before the FCC.

Before coming to Washington I was an academic. We debated issues as though they occurred in a vacuum. It’s our job to make sure people hear when decsions are being made, get mad, and do something about it.

We have a major education problem when it comes to the future of the Internet.

Network neutrality is an example. I’ve had 100 meetings on Capitol Hill in the last three months, on this issue. I sat down with a staffer recently and she said, "I don’t understand it, and I’m going to advise my boss stay as far from it as possible."

We have to get this issue a higher profile.

Two years ago communtiy broadband was hidden potential. Over the last two years 400 communities built them. The story got out – it was about choice. it captured the public imagination, local governments, venture capital, entrepreneurs, and we no longer hace a debate about whether there’s a local authority to provide it. The momentum has clearlly shifted.

It is incumbent on us to bring our knowledge outside the Beltway and tell that story for issues of network neutrality. It’’ only when we step outside, we realize people have no idea what we’’e talking about.

We need better ways to tell it as a story.

One is to discuss it in ways people understand. The question is not who controls the architecture, it’s who controls your consumer experience? Is it you or the network operator.

Compare it to things people already know. Network neutrality is about wehter the internet will become like cable television. we’re all expecting to reach any channel. By contrast, on cable the network operator decides what will be available. People understand and don’t want the Internet to become cable Tv. We’ve found this a successful way to get the issue across.

Why is the Internet free? It’s free because that’s the way it’s designed. The roads are that way.

Even though the rules were changed in 2005 with no one’s knowledge, that doesn’t change the fact we have common carriage on the network. It’s a good story.

I’ll close with a story from the community wireless summit. We had a roundtable discussion. The most gratifying moment came after the panel. The university that hosted us was taping us for their community access cable channel. The woman filming us came to me and asked, “How can I get involved?

It’s that moment we have to reproduce millions of times before we have a large enough group to do something.