AUGUSTA – Few people in Maine knew much about the Internet a decade ago. Today, three of every four Mainers say they use the information superhighway regularly. But efforts to turn that freeway into a toll road could limit users’ options, warned members of Maine’s congressional delegation Friday.

“Net neutrality protects the information superhighway,” Sen. Olympia Snowe said about introducing legislation to maintain the Internet’s status quo. She said that without her legislation or a similar measure, the information superhighway is destined to be a toll road. “For consumers, the Internet they are familiar with would disappear, it would cease to exist.”

Snowe said that without legislation to protect the “openness” of the Internet, telecommunications companies will create “barriers” by charging fees for such items as assured e-mail delivery.

“In this new world, network operators would make decisions about what the consumer sees, a choice that is now exercised where it should be, with the consumer,” Snowe said.

Snowe and Sen. Bryan Dorgan, D-North Dakota, have introduced legislation in Congress to assure net neutrality, although the battle is likely to take place in the Commerce Committee as the panel considers updating the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Snowe and Dorgan both are on that committee.

The legislation is bringing some diverse groups together, with 761 organizations endorsing the measure, including Moveon.org and the Christian Coalition.

The bill, titled the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, would amend the 1996 law to protect consumers and online businesses from unfair treatment by broadband service providers by requiring them to operate the network in a nondiscriminatory manner. While service providers would be free to offer different levels of broadband connections to users, consumers would have the option of purchasing a “stand alone” broadband connection that is not bundled with the need to buy another service like cable TV or telephone.

“The concept of net neutrality is the right concept,” Rep. Tom Allen said. “I voted for that in the Energy and Commerce Committee. I do worry about the fact that, over time, some more influential purveyors of the Internet will get faster, better services than everyone else.”

Allen said the Internet was created by the government to assure the ability to move large amounts of data for military and other government purposes. He said it has evolved to be crucial to individuals and to businesses of all sizes.

“It was public money that brought it into being,” he said. “I think there is a very strong case that the public has a right of access to the Internet.”

Allen was on the losing side of a House vote that would make it easier for phone companies to offer video services in competition with cable companies. Allen wanted a provision that would have required both to operate in a “nondiscriminatory” manner.

Instead, the legislation urges full access for consumers, but would not forbid telecommunications companies to give some content favorable – or unfavorable – treatment. It also bars the Federal Communications Commission from writing rules to enforce Internet neutrality.

Snowe said that legislation is not acceptable. She said any legislation must protect the current open structure of the Internet. But at a hearing last week before her panel, the trade association of the phone industry, the U.S. Telecom Association, argued the House approach is best.

“We believe this market-based model, rather than a government-managed regulatory model, is best capable of encouraging significant investment in next-generation broadband infrastructure,” said association President Walter McCormick.

“As I have stated before this committee many times, the companies I represent have been managing networks in this country for over 100 years.

“Consumers today have, and will continue to have, the freedom to call or e-mail whomever they choose and to visit any legal Web site without being blocked, without their service being impaired or degraded,” he said.

But Snowe and Allen both advocate for protections in the law that ensure all providers do what they say they will do.

Ralph Caruso, the chief information officer for the University of Maine System, said the state’s universities are already spending millions every year to pay for access to the Internet.

“We don’t have the resources to see 20 or 30 or 40 percent increases in our costs,” he said. “We are very worried about the impact of the loss of net neutrality.”

The legislation also pits big business against small business. John Rutledge testified in support of the House measure before the Senate committee for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The U.S. Chamber opposes the enactment of ‘net neutrality’ legislation and believes telecommunications markets should be driven by advances in technology, competition [between] telecommunications companies and consumer choice, not by government regulation,” he said. “[The] United States cannot afford for its economy to be stuck at an Internet red light.”

David Clough, Maine director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said small business simply cannot afford to pay the higher costs of using the Internet that would result from elimination of the current neutrality.

“The smaller business owner sometimes does need the government to set some rules so that sheer size does not win out,” he said.

Clough noted it was a century ago that President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, pushed through legislation to control large businesses that sought to create monopolies and strengthen anti-trust laws.

“It looks like they are trying to go in the wrong direction in Washington,” he said.