group of technology and media companies including Microsoft, Disney Yahoo and eBay plans to send a letter to the Federal Communications Commission today arguing that the open nature of the Internet will be lost unless the agency amends its broadband policy.

The formation of the group signals a growing fear that the F.C.C., in an effort to spur investment in broadband Internet services, is ceding control to a handful of cable and phone companies over a network long seen as inherently immune to controlling influences.

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In the letter to the F.C.C., the Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators urges the agency to ensure that providers of high-speed D.S.L. and cable-modem services will not be able to favor certain Internet sites and services over others.

"We are extremely concerned," says a copy of the letter, "that the robustness and innovativeness of the Internet will be at risk and broadband adoption will be slowed unless the F.C.C. takes the necessary steps to preserve this principle."

Cable and phone companies have said that such concern is unwarranted because they would not pursue such policies. They also say that competition will ensure that consumer demand is met.

The letter comes as the F.C.C. weighs whether to require phone companies to allow competing Internet service providers to use their high-speed networks. The agency has already declined to impose such a requirement on cable companies, although consumer advocates are challenging that decision in federal court in San Francisco.

Coalition participants, which include several companies and trade groups that are engaged in open combat on other policy fronts, say it is significant that so many diverse interests have united.

"We didn't have to agree on what the answer is to agree that there's a problem," said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a consumer advocacy group that joined companies like Apple Computer and RadioShack in signing the letter.

Coalition members suggest that unless the F.C.C. prohibits cable companies from discriminating, they could steer customers away from Web sites that offer movies that compete with their own pay-per-view programming. Or, they say, Barnes & Noble could make a deal with a D.S.L. provider to block consumers from visiting Amazon.com.

Most people still log on to the Internet over a regular telephone line, and consumers can typically choose from several competing Internet service providers. But as more households sign up for high-speed connections, they may have only two providers to choose from. That, coalition members say, makes their concerns more pressing.