This is on the media.

Bob Garfield is away.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

This week, the tug of war over

who controls the internet intensified. The FCC wants to ensure that all content providers are

treated equally, consistent with the principle called network neutrality. Internet service providers

like Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T say that the market will see to that.

Tensions been mounting ever since a federal court determined in April that the FCC has no authority to regulate the Internet.

That means that theoretically the ISPs can favor certain content providers with faster speeds for a price, or block them altogether.

Thus, they can make or break a business or a new site.

Think about it.

How long are you really willing to wait for a website to load?

Open Internet advocates say that now both free speech and the innovation that fuels our information economy are at risk.

The FCC vowed to work with the ISPs and content providers like Google to keep the Internet free,

an approach that FCC Chairman Julius Genakowski says does not involve regulating the Internet.

It would preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet.

It flows from a deep recognition that one of the Internet's greatest strengths,

its unprecedented power to foster innovation and free speech,

stems from the absence of any central controlling authority,

either public or private.

Last week, the industry's negotiations with the FCC collapsed, but it seemed that the tug

of war over network neutrality would go on because 900-pound gorillas were pulling hard at each end of the rope.

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