Reprinted with permission from the Guardian

There’s a classic scene in The Matrix, where Morpheus (the Laurence Fishburne character) offers Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), a fateful choice.

He holds out two pills.
Take the blue pill, he says, and you go back to a life of
clock-punching drudgery where your every move is monitored. Take the
red one, and you get spaceships, kung-fu and a leather-clad Carrie-Anne
Moss.

Take away the martial arts, and Morpheus could just as well be
describing the monumental choice Americans are facing today over the
future of the Internet. Only it’s not science fiction.

Over the next few years, Congress, the Federal Communications
Commission and the next president will shape the Internet for a
generation. Down one path is a closed Internet experience tightly controlled by a small handful of giant corporations. Down the other is the open Internet, with all its possibilities.

Closed for Business

Who wants you to swallow the blue pill? Meet the nation’s biggest
telecom and cable companies, a cartel that dominates 99% of the U.S.
residential market for high-speed Internet access. These firms — led by
AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to exploit their
gatekeeper power to decide what you can do on the web.

That’s not what they say in their ubiquitous ads, of course. But
watch their actions closely — or squint at the fine print in the terms of service — and you’ll get a glimpse of their plans.

These companies are lobbying furiously to kill “Network Neutrality,”
the longstanding principle that prevents them from discriminating
against Web sites or services based on their source, ownership or
destination.

Comcast was recently caught blocking
users of file-sharing services, cutting off access to legal content —
including a download of the King James Bible. Their “network
management” is really just an attempt to undercut potential competitors
in the video business, while avoiding sorely needed network upgrades.

Verizon censored text messages sent by NARAL Pro-Choice America to its own members. Only after the incident appeared on the front page of the New York Times did Verizon correct its “glitch” and let the messages go through.

AT&T plans to “filter” content to ferret out
pirated material on its networks. The company - the same one seeking
retroactive immunity for spying on your phone calls - would use
copyright protection as a Trojan horse to inspect everything travelling
over its pipes and control how audio and video are distributed on the
Web.

The Open Road

An open Internet looks quite different. It starts with Net
Neutrality, which guarantees a level playing field and gives the little
guy the same chance as Google to come up with the next big thing.
(Remember, it wasn’t Comcast or AT&T that invented YouTube, blogs,
eBay or almost anything else that makes the internet so great.) On an
open Internet, a provider’s only job is to move data — not degrade,
inspect or censor content.

An open Internet also means more competition and choices.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government has abandoned the “open access”
requirements that once forced telecom companies to share their wires to
ensure a competitive market. When it comes to broadband, most U.S.
consumers now are lucky to have two choices: the phone or the cable
company. Contrast this with the dozens of providers competing for your
business overseas. No wonder Americans pay far more for slower speeds than consumers in Europe and Asia.

We need to open up the wireless networks, too. Mobile devices are
how many of us will access the Internet in the future. But U.S.
consumers are shackled with punitive, long-term contracts as new
technology is kept behind walled gardens. (If you want an iPhone, your
only option is to sign up with AT&T.) Why can’t we use any phone or
software we want on all networks?

The answer comes down to policy decisions - mostly bad ones. For too
long, our policies have been crafted behind closed doors by high-priced
lobbyists and clueless politicians. It’s scandalous that we’ve reached
this critical juncture without a truly public conversation about what
the future of the Internet should look like.

Taking it Public

Instead of aiding and abetting another massive giveaway to the phone
and cable companies, our legislators and regulators need to get outside Washington.
We need old-fashioned town meetings and online forums about the
Internet’s future in every state, if not every congressional district.

Unless you’re a phone or cable company executive, it’s hard to
imagine anyone who opposes universal, affordable access to an open
internet for everyone. Already, nearly 2 million people have contacted
Congress and the FCC about the once-obscure issue of Net Neutrality.
Can you think of another issue that unites MoveOn.org and the Christian
Coalition, PETA and the Gun Owners of America, Amazon.com and the
American Library Association?

Putting an open Internet on the national agenda this election year
and into 2009 will require an unusual combination of dedicated
politicians, high-tech companies that see beyond their own narrow
interests, and innovative grassroots organising online and off. And we
can count on the phone and cable giants — with their limitless lobbying
budgets and bulging campaign coffers — to put up a fight.

But as Morpheus once said: “I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.”