Damn those customers, anyway. They country and economy need.” He’s right about The theory underlying the 1996 always want more and better services for that! But then he writes, “As we move to a Telecom Act was that competition would lower prices. There ought to be a law. broadband environment and eliminate cen- be an effective substitute for regulation.
Soon there will be a law. By the time tury-old non-discrimination requirements, But today the competitive local exchange
you read this, a bad telecom bill will be a lightweight but enforceable neutrality carriers have almost entirely disappeared,
on its way towards a vote in the US House rule is needed to ensure that the Internet the incumbents stay out of each oth-
and Senate. continues to thrive.” Though I agree with ers’ residential markets so assiduously
If the bill is similar to the one intro- Vint on most matters and trust the purity it smacks of collusion, and the cable-
duced by Chairman Barton of the House of his motives, I’m skeptical about this cos wink-wink compete with the telcos.
Commerce Committee last November, assertion. Residential Internet users choose between
it gives network providers overwhelm- I don’t think there is an Internet neu- frying pan and fire. Telecom competition
ing motivation to restrict, constrict and trality rule that is both lightweight and has joined the Oxymoron Club, alongside
interfere with the Internet connectivity enforceable when the network operator phrases like, “Fight for peace.”
they provide. It does this by allowing a also provides telephony and video enter- The Powell FCC, at least, worked to-
network operator to provide partitioned tainment that are isolated from the basic wards intermodal competition, where
telephony and TV offerings along with new spectrum regulations would open
its Internet connection service. Just as ...the Martin FCC the Internet connectivity marketplace to
increased scarcity causes increased pric- acts as if market entire new sectors of wireless carrier and es, so will a telco want to constrain its new technologies like broadband over
customers from using its Internet to consolidation is a powerlines. Chairman Powell, at least,
make VoIP phone calls over the raw good thing. had the wisdom to forbear from most reg-
Internet connection. A cableco will ulation of Internet service providers and
want to constrain its customers from Internet connection. The two “enshrined” Internet applications, even if they threat-
finding video entertainment out there on services come with well-known business ened telcos with Skype-like disruption.
the Internet. models and predictable cash flows. The But the Martin FCC acts as if market
The predilection towards restriction Internet service is self-competitive. It lets consolidation is a good thing. Chairman
will expand as telcos begin to offer video the customer get those same services ei- Martin thinks newly-merged bigcos like
entertainment and cablecos start doing ther “for free” or by paying fees to other Verizon and AT&T will accelerate 911
telephony. Telco and cableco alike will providers. Any networkoperator that was service and broadband deployment. In
whittle at the customer’s basic Internet not sorely tempted to impair its Internet fact, current FCC 911 policy is a huge
connectivity so it won’t disrupt voice and service or skimp on throughput to make barrier to new VoIP telcos, and US broad-
video revenues. it harder to use certain applications would band deployment appears to be slowing
The call has gone out for “network neu- be a network operator that did not know even as it surges in the rest of the world.
trality” provisions that would prohibit the its own self-interest. As competition fades, the last thing
most blatant kinds of network impair- A rule that put the network operator in we need is more incentives to constrict
ments. Vint Cerf, as good a candidate for a self-competitive bind would be neither Internet connectivity. How could we in-
“Father of the Internet” as anybody, wrote lightweight nor enforceable. It would be cent open Internet connectivity? Watch
a letter to the Telecom Subcommittee that the subject of hundreds of pages of hair- this space. V
said, “Enshrining a rule that broadly permits splitting FCC regulations. Compliance
network operators to discriminate in favor by network operators would be subject to David S. Isenberg ( isen@isen.com) is author
of [telephony and video] and to potentially slow-rolling, litigation, and weakening by of “The Rise of the Stupid Network” and
interfere with other [services] would… not FCC interpretation. Attempts to strength- a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet
give consumers the broadband Internet our en the FCC’s enforcement powers would & Society at Harvard University.
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