The US Congress ran out of time to discuss the bill in the current session and, when a new Democratic Congress comes back from its holidays, the bill is unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing.
The presentation of the bill did manage to amuse most of the technological community as Stevens presented the Internet as a series of tubes and pipes which would get blocked if the bill never went ahead.
Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Civic Action, said the death of the bill was a huge victory for "real people". He said it was a clear signal to the next Congress that standing up for big bold ideas was a winning political proposition.
It has been estimated that AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and Comcast shelled out more than $150 million to push the bill through. It looks like they would have been better putting it on a horse.
However, there is still a concern that without some law guaranteeing net neutrality it is possible that the telcos could still lobby senators to bring similar laws. µ
L'INQ
www.savetheinternet.com