The issue of net neutrality may come up for debate Tuesday in the U.S. Senate as it debates amending telecommunications law, but while lawmakers are discussing the issue, a battle wages between two philosophies about how, for whom and if the Internet should be regulated.

Net neutrality is a shortened term for either Internet Neutrality or Network Neutrality, where companies that provide Internet access would be prohibited from blocking or interfering with a customer’s ability to use any part of the Internet. In addition, net neutrality provides that all Internet applications would be able to be used as long as the same service and speed was available to every user.

“All net neutrality means is that there shouldn’t be discrimination on the Internet, plain and simple,” said Maura Corbett, spokesperson for the It’s Our Net coalition. “One of the key foundations of the Internet is that there were rules of the road in place from its inception that prevented network operations . from interfering with what consumers did on the Internet.”

By putting net neutrality laws into place, proponents of such regulations hope to prevent Internet Service Providers from creating networks that would allow telecommunications companies to have certain content on the Internet become favored to its customers. A hypothetical example would be if a social networking Web site, such as Facebook, paid an ISP a fee to have its content become favored so it could load faster and be more efficient on the ISPs network than another social networking Web site, such as MySpace.

According to the SaveTheInternet.com Coalition, a group advocating net neutrality, has listed four incidents where ISPs discriminated against content and competing services, however, two of them occurred in Canada.

Speaking out against net neutrality are the telecommunications companies that say that such regulations would harm consumer choice rather than help Internet users, where consumers end up being the only ones to foot the bill for the billion-dollar telecommunications networks being built to support content providers.

“It’s nothing more than a direct tax on consumers,” said Jeff Mazzella, president of the Center for Individual Freedom, a non-profit corporation. “The pro-net neutrality crowd is basically saying that ‘we reap the rewards of the Internet.'”

Hands Off The Internet, a coalition with members including telecommunications companies, non-profit organizations and industry associations, has said that net neutrality is likely to raise prices, degrade Internet experience and block innovation.

The coalition has said on its Web site that policies that affect consumers online should follow a set of self-regulation principles, including that the government should not be regulating content on the Internet and allowing fair competition to provide consumer choices.

“This will be the first time in history that our government is going to delve into regulating this wonderful medium,” Mazzella said. “The government is going to put the breaks on innovation and investment. It’s also going to hurt customers through higher prices and they will be forced to bear the burden for new infrastructure investments are made.”

Co-chair of Hands Off The Internet, Christopher Wolf, recently wrote a study about net neutrality, calling it “a solution looking for a problem” that was “based solely on hypothetical harms, and exaggerated fears.”

Wolf said in the paper “A Legal Perspective on ‘Net Neutrality'” that telecommunication companies that provide broadband Internet services already follow the Federal Communications Commission’s non-discrimination and non-degradation principles and the FCC has the jurisdiction to intervene if harmful practices occur.

An example offered by SaveTheInternet.com was resolved in March 2005, when the FCC fined Madison River Communication $15,000 for blocking ports that Vonage was using to provide Internet-based phone services.

“This unique example of a broadband provider abusing its power shows that the FCC is not prepared to abdicate its role as a consumer protection and competition watchdog,” Wolf said in the paper about the port-blocking incident.

Opponents of net neutrality also argue that the current practices of such a policy actually is not neutral. In a study released on Feb. 6, Vanderbilt Law School Professor Christopher S. Yoo said the current standard of the Internet, TCP/IP, actually “discriminates against applications that are time sensitive,” such as streaming video and voice over IP Internet telephone phone services.

The practice of sending data packets anonymously along the network works well for text-based applications, such as e-mail, instant messaging and file-transfers, but net neutrality does not allow for a higher priority to be assigned to packets for applications that demand heightened amounts of bandwidth, Yoo said in “Promoting Broadband Through Network Diversity.” The study was funded by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association on Yoo’s condition that the association would have no influence on his analysis or conclusions.

“It would thus be a mistake to regard network neutrality as inherently neutral,” Yoo said. “In short, it appears that the term network neutrality is something of a misnomer.”

Conversely, net neutrality advocates claim that the principle of adopting standards on the Internet spurred its multiple innovations because “no firm has the ability to act as a gatekeeper associated with access to the protocols, and thus determine which applications, content, or services should be allowed to use the Internet,” according to an issue brief prepared for the Consumer Federation of America by Trevor R. Roycroft in June.

“Just look at the evidence, the Internet is certainly not broken,” Corbett said. “Look at the innovation that’s happened on the Internet and where it’s come from. … It was all created under the existing rules. So if in fact you close the Internet down by allowing gatekeepers, that’s how you’re going to kill innovation.”

And now that the issue has recently been in the news with Congress tackling the topic of whether or not to introduce net neutrality language into an amended telecommunications law. The House recently squashed an amendment to net neutrality advocates favored after passing the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006. Now, the Senate is debating the Communications, Consumers’ Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 that would deny the FCC lawmaking abilities and another amendment is on the table to be discussed.

Craig Aaron, spokesperson for SaveTheInternet and communications director for Free Press, said that it’s an uphill fight for net neutrality supporters and said he had some optimism for the Senate bill because it has bipartisan support. But whether or not net neutrality provisions are included, the SaveTheInternet coalition is prepared for a long process to achieve its goals.

“Certainly, this is going to be a very, very important vote that’s going to happen tomorrow, but it would not be anywhere near the end of the fight,” Aaron said. “We’re a long way from this legislation becoming law.”