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The full-service network (FSN) is a telecommunications infrastructure capable of providing all of today's known telecommunications applications as well as laying the foundation for future applications.

. This tutorial reviews the FSN as deployed in a rural setting.

The U.S. Congress has network neutrality under scrutiny and perhaps under threat. Network neutrality is the concept that broadband carriers will neither interfere with nor inhibit the free flow of information over the Internet. A bill, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Efficiency Act of 2006, or COPE (aka the Barton-Rush Act), is making its way through the House of Representatives. It could empower commercial broadband carriers like Sprint and AT&T to manipulate Internet transactions by prohibiting or slowing access to and transmission of specific sites. In effect, the buzz is that the House proposes to cede control of the Internet to the telecoms and cable companies. By contrast, there are bills being introduced in the Senate that seek to protect network neutrality. First among these is S. 2360, the proposed Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006. 1, 2

By recognizing the need to separate connectivity from applications we have the opportunity to unleash the power of the marketplace that has served so very well in computing and in the Intern