The House late Thursday moved toward passage of a measure overhauling the 1996 Telecommunications Act, as a contentious amendment strengthening the so-called network neutrality provisions in the bill was defeated, 269-152. The bill is largely designed to expedite the entry of the Bell telecommunications companies into the video services market by allowing them to obtain nationwide franchises. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to take up similar legislation in two weeks. Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee ranking member Edward Markey, D-Mass., led an attack on what the bill’s critics saw as its two main failings: the lack of a requirement that new entrants into video services provide service to all neighborhoods, regardless of income, and the limited nature of the legislation’s network neutrality rules. The network neutrality debate centers around the ability of the owners of high-speed Internet “pipes” to discriminate against certain types of content in terms of pricing or delivery speed. Throughout Thursday’s debate, Markey, in pushing his net neutrality amendment, contended there was a need to impose strict rules to keep the Bells and cable operators from creating a two-tiered Internet — with a faster lane for preferred businesses and a slower lane for everyone else. Pitted against the Bells and cable operators were some of the country’s best known technology firms, which have lobbied hard for strict network neutrality requirements. “Unless we have net neutrality rules, [the telecommunications bill] would turn the Internet into cable TV,” charged Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. “Google is a multi-billion corporation that was founded in a Stanford dorm room. That is about to change, unless this House adopts net neutrality rules.” But Energy and Commerce Chairman Barton, chief sponsor of the telecommunications measure, contended that going beyond the net neutrality language already in the bill would “hand the FCC a blank check to regulate Internet services.” As now written, the Barton measure would bar the Bells and cable companies from blocking competitors’ Internet traffic. Network neutrality advocates say this does not go far enough. By Drew Clark, Congress Daily