Would Internet users want to pay 5 cents every time they visit Google.com, Yahoo.com or any other Web site? That’s one possibility if the U.S. Congress fails to include strong "network neutrality" rules as it debates a comprehensive telecom reform bill, a group of open Internet advocates said Friday.

A more likely possibility: Broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast block access to services such as competing VoIP services or video downloads, said panelists at an open Internet forum for congressional staffers in Washington, D.C.

While charging users a fee to visit some Web sites may be an unlikely scenario, large broadband providers could slow down access to Web sites or services with which they have no distribution agreements, said members of consumer groups and two consumer-focused technology companies.

The concept of net neutrality was endorsed by Michael Powell, then chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in February 2004, and consumer advocates had been pushing the idea even before then. Although the FCC didn't formalize Powell's ideas into rules, the former chairman suggested that Internet users had the freedom to access content of their choice, attach devices of their choice, and run applications of their choice.

But two recent decisions, one by the FCC and one by the U.S. Supreme Court, raise questions about the consumer rights Powell advocated, said participants in the Friday forum. In June, the court ruled that cable companies offering broadband access do not have to open their high-speed lines to competitors, and in August, the FCC followed suit by ruling that DSL providers no longer have to share their networks with competitors.

The two rulings set the stage for closed broadband networks where the providers set the rules, said speakers at the Friday forum.

Without net neutrality rules, the concept of an open, go-where-you-want Internet is at risk, said representatives of Vonage and TiVO. "Net neutrality means the Internet keeps working like the Internet works today," said Chris Murray, vice president of government affairs for Vonage, a VoIP provider. "It's about a larger issue than how much profit network operators can extract."

Broadband providers have opposed the call for net neutrality provisions in a new telecom reform package, saying they have no intention of blocking customer access to legal content and services. Providers would lose customers if they blocked customers from going to the Web sites they chose, Verizon and Comcast officials have argued in recent months.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.