Creative Voices filed Comments with the FCC on October 24, 2006 calling for strong and enforceable Net Neutrality conditions in the AT&T -- BellSouth merger.

Some of our observations:

Writers, directors, producers, performers, musicians, and other talented professionals in the literary and entertainment arts give life to our nation’s popular and literary arts -- educating the public, enriching the culture, and helping safeguard our democracy. From the most prominent well-established independent television or film producer to the kid with nothing but a video camera, a computer, and a dream, creative media artists increasingly utilize the broadband Internet to avoid the chokehold that broadcasters and cable operators have over distribution to the audience. But their ability to utilize the broadband Internet for distribution is threatened by media concentration, and the chokehold that the phone and cable companies have over access to the broadband network.

What is at stake here is nothing less than the future of the Internet, and whether the future Internet will be open or closed to independent and diverse voices and viewpoints. Not just creative voices – all voices. Will consumers retain the freedom to access any website, as they could when government policies were in place that ensured nondiscriminatory access, or will they be restricted to visiting sites approved by – or in business with – the “gatekeeper” that provides high speed Internet access? As creative media artists, we've seen this closed business model now being proposed for the Internet take over both broadcast television and cable television. Been there, done that, and seen that it is extremely harmful to diversity, creativity, and free expression. Let’s keep the Internet a real “level playing field.”

The market power of the proposed combined company over Internet content and services, along with recent regulatory and legislative developments, requires that the Commission attach substantial and enforceable conditions to its approval of the transaction to ensure that the Internet remains that real “level playing field.” The companies’ offer to abide by the FCC’s Broadband Policy Statement for a period of 30 months is not merely insufficient; it thumbs its nose at the American public and this Commission. By definition, approval of this transaction cannot be in the “public interest” if the combined company retains the right to ignore and violate after just 30 months the public interest in net neutrality, as expressed in the Commission’s Policy Statement.

Read our entire Comments, with attachments, at the link below.