FCC commissioner Michael Copps was the first speaker at today’s Pulver Freedom 2 Connect conference in Silver Spring, Maryland. Following are my notes from his talk:
This is one of the most important dialogs taking place anywhere in the country this week.
The issue you discuss today are playing very prominently in the legislative branch and regulatory sphere.
You can help us understand what a right to connect means in this broadband age.
This is a dialog we can’t aford to confine just inside the Beltway.
We view the Internet as a place of freedom and openness, a place where innovation can flourish and anyone with a good idea can develop a business plan with global reach. With the genius of a dumb pipe connecting to the edges, the posibilities are endless and this is how things ought to be.
But there are threats. Telltale clues are out there. We have seen the news of new broadband toll bridges that will restrict VoIP., or music, or other services.
The more concentrated the facilities providers grow the more they can act as Internet gatekeepers, dictating who can use the Internet and for what purpose.
We cannot let that happen.
History would not forgive us, nor should it.
Two years ago I asked if the Internet as we know is dieing.
End user control is at risk. There are fewer broadband providers with more control over the bits. FCC statistics show that together the Bells and cable control more thn 98% of the broadband market, with many consumers lacking even the choice of 2.
We are nowhere near seeing the ubiquitour 3rd or 4th or 5th player needed to create a viable competitive market.
If the market is competitive we can rely on its genius. But meanwhile the incumbents have the incentive to build traffic management that benefits them.
New costs may come your way.
You have the spectre of broadband probivers restricting what you can do on the Internet. They say they are not going to do that, but history shows when firms have both the technology and incentive to enhance their sway they give it a try. It can lead to disasterously bad policy.
What is the FCC doing?
IT’s a mixed bag. In August we reclassified braodband as Title One information services, rahter than telecommunications. That may seem like semantics, but it has real consequances. The obligations attached to teleomunications service, and were vital to keeping the Internet open, no longer apply Reclassification brings questions of universal service, consumer protection, disability and even homeland security.
We’re spending time talking about whether the protections of POTS should even apply in the 21st century.
When the commission adapted the order I asked for an Internet policy statement. Now we have a document that summarizes the rights of end users.
Access content, run applications, connect and enjoy competition.
The policy statement sends a cautionary signal to providers who might want to set up toll booths.
There were quesitons about its enforceablility.
Then with the mergers we saw the consolidation of last mile with dominant players who own over half the Internet backbone.
The statement provided time to make this policy permanent, and kept hope alive.
That was the good news.
The not so good news is we stil have a good ways to go. Act Two is playing in the Congressional stage.
Act two started with the pronouncements of the public providers about their intended business plans. They’re searching for new busines models, contending web sites should pay for the traffic they generate. What a strange world that would be.
This proposal misses the mark. Web site content is what makes broadband service so valuable in the first place. It seems to me they want to double dip – get paid by consumers, and get paid by web sites.
As a matter of policy we should be doing eveything we can do preserve the openness that made the Internet the greatest democratic tool in history.
If you can erect tolls for unaffiliated proviers we have a balkanized Internet.
That inverts the very democratic genius of the Internet. It makes the
pipe intelligent and the consumer dumb. It means entrepreneurs need
permission to innovate. It results in a broadband bottleneck tax. It
artificially constrains supply of bandwidth, at a time when the real
argument is it’s the bandwidth stupid.
Meanwhile we’re slipping down the international broadband rankings.
We’re 16th and freefalling. Restricting what you can do is not what is
going to help us climb up.
Look what happened in Canada last summer, a major ISP blocked access to
the web site of a union, because it was critical of the provider.
Imagine if your provider could restrict your access to news sources or political sites.
I am concerned. I really am concerned. And we need a real national
dialog on these issues of consumer rights, Internet rights and
broadband deployment.
We need the American people to be involved. And we’ll find them more than happy to engage.
This has all the marks of being a grassroots all American issue.
I attended a town hall meeting on media consolidation last week.Some of
the speakers likened what is happening in media to what is happening
and the Internet, and the audience immediately indicated its strong and
palpable agreement.
It occurred to me this may be the third rail of the conslidation
debate. It is an issue that is not going away. The issue of the
Internet is vital to ur citizens.
We need to get a national policy.
If we get this wrong Ameican consumers will pay. So will American
technology,. innovation and entrepreneurship. That is a price we cannot
afford.
This is not about better communications and a better Internet. This is about a better America.
