If you wanted to get on the Internet back in the early 1990s, chances are you joined one of the main commercial computer networks at the time, like Prodigy, CompuServe, or America Online, typically through a package deal when you bought a computer. For the most part, each of these networks was set up as a kind of "gated community" whose content was available exclusively to paying network members. Only e-mail could pass from one network to another, and everything else people made available on the networks they used -- news pages, bulletin boards, software, and so on -- was off limits to "outsiders."

All of this changed considerably after 1992 with the rise of the World Wide Web. The Web distributed Internet content in a manner that was more friendly to new computer users, which led to a dramatic escalation of the quantity and quality of content outside of the gated communities of Prodigy and CompuServe. This, in turn, helped make the Internet the open forum and communications powerhouse it is today.

Now, proposals being pushed in Congress by corporate Internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon are threatening to force all Internet users back to the bad old days of online gated communities, but with far more drastic consequences.

What's specifically at stake is what's termed "network neutrality." It's one of the founding principles of the Internet, and means that Internet service providers, or those who set up the virtual roads for Internet traffic, can't discriminate about what travels on those roads, nor who sends that traffic.

But, that principle was put at risk when the Supreme Court ruled last year that Internet service providers can (in some circumstances) practice online discrimination. With that window of opportunity now open, telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon are working to promote proposals that may allow them to use their power over users' access to the Web to enhance their own profits by preferring certain types of content over others.

But you might ask, what's the problem? Internet users already pay for access. That's true, but the control of what content is accessed, and how fast it's accessed, currently lies with Internet users. If network neutrality is abolished, that control would likely change to the Internet service provider, which would prioritize its own content (since more money can be made that way) or the content of its advertisers at the expense of other content elsewhere on the Internet.

Recreating these gated communities may also cause the emergence of the digital equivalent of ghettos, where content, though free or low-cost, would be increasingly hard to find and painfully slow to access. This situation would no doubt dissuade many potential new Internet content providers from even bothering to add their voices to the online dialogue. Indeed, if the corporate new media giants get their way, there is even a possibility that Internet service providers could be allowed to block access to certain kinds of content (for instance, websites critical of AT&T or Verizon) altogether.

And there's much more at stake than just the Internet. More and more conventional media, such as television and radio, is becoming digitized, and will thus rely more and more on an Internet infrastructure for transit into people's homes. The abolition of network neutrality could well impact the future of our entire media landscape.

Fortunately, citizens are organizing across the political spectrum to preserve and maintain network neutrality. One prominent coalition, called Save The Internet (at savetheinternet.com), networks hundreds of groups, bloggers, and concerned citizens.

The outcry has made a difference already. The House Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly approved -- along bipartisan lines -- a proposal requiring Internet service providers to operate their networks in a non-discriminatory manner. But we need to keep public attention focused on this issue in order to preserve the free and open net we have grown accustom to in recent years.

The future of network neutrality impacts all Internet users. If we don't act now, we will live with the equivalent of road blocks and gated communities on the information superhighway.

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Macek is an assistant professor of speech communication at North Central College. Szczepanczyk is an organizer with Chicago Media Action and a frequent contributor to assorted Chicago-area independent media efforts in print, web, radio and television.

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