Blog - Page 16

The FCC’s newest plan for seizing control of the last-mile broadband connections we all use to access the Internet would classify broadband as a ‘telecommunications service,’ which will put the FCC under constant pressure to resurrect the “unbundling” regulations that precipitated the telecom crash of 2000 by requiring owners of last-mile links to homes and offices to share their lines with rivals. Remember the CLECs? They were essentially a hothouse product of regulation, and they not only failed to deliver bandwidth but they brought down the whole high tech economy. As a result of that carnage the FCC drew back, last-mile bandwidth was declared to be an ‘information service,’ and thus not subject to the labyrinthine rules that were applied Read More ›

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined his game plan for asserting FCC control over broadband services this week in a speech entitled: “The Third Way: A Narrowly Tailored Broadband Framework.” This is the FCC’s third major attempt to regulate broadband services, as my colleague Jim Harper pointed out in conversation today. I think it will also be the FCC’s third strike. Genachowski is engaging in a futile attempt to slice and dice the Internet as a definitional matter for the purpose of expanding his agency’s regulatory grasp while hopefully containing many of the harmful consequences of regulatory overreach. Regulating an essential component of the Internet as a “telecommunications service” would still amount to a form of Internet regulation in violation of Read More ›

A sudden decision by the head of the Federal Communications Commission to accept Net Neutrality rules flies in the face of the economic arguments–and the fairness arguments–against such a departure. Hance Haney made the case earlier this week in the Seattle Times. “An open Internet where broadband providers do not block access to websites or discriminate between content or applications isn’t a vision,” he writes. “It’s a description of the unregulated Internet we already enjoy today. Those in Washington, D.C., who want to change it could stymie it instead and damage the economy.” He was speaking of the FCC. Read it all here.

The Federal Communications Commission was in Seattle soliciting public testimony in an effort to regulate the Internet. The Seattle Times kindly published a column of mine arguing that the FCC should focus on spurring investment, not more regulation.

Pew Research Center surveys find that only 22% percent of the public say they can “trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time, among the lowest measures in half a century,” according to Andrew Kohut. Just 40% say it is a good idea for the government to exert more control over the economy, while a 51% majority says it is not. The one exception Pew found was public support for stricter regulation of the way major financial companies do business, which is favored by a 61% to 31% margin.

Protecting the Internet from the heavy hand of government regulation is not just a Republican goal. The following excerpt is from a 1999 speech by former FCC Chairman William E. Kennard (appointed by President Bill Clinton): What I would like to do is take the opportunity here today to talk to you a little bit about why I believe the best way to achieve these values is to resist the urge to regulate right now. One reason is because of my vision that we will have multiple broadband pipes — cable, DSL, broadband wireless, satellite, terrestrial broadcast. That is why I think the debate that we are having today about unbundling and access to this cable pipe is fundamentally different Read More ›

Telecommunications reform (HB 168) was amended in the Georgia State Senate to protect the Public Service Commission’s authority to resolve consumer complaints against providers of old-fashioned telephone service. Good politics, perhaps, but PSC jurisdiction for consumer issues is redundant since the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs already protects consumers. And although it may sound counterintuitive, PSC authority can actually harm consumers by restraining full and fair competition. That’s because the PSC only has jurisdiction to resolve consumer complaints affecting wireline telephone service, but not wireless or VoIP services with which they compete. If the PSC isn’t careful, it can create unequal marketplace advantages and burdens depending on the type of technology competitors use to deliver their services. Nevertheless, HB 168 Read More ›

Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, reacting to a proposal to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, in an interview with Cecilia Kang of the Washington Post: Here’s the bottom line, to talk about going to Title II is talking about doing something relatively epic, novel and unprecedented. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it, but I might challenge it. * * * * I hate the idea of Title II for broadband. I think we would really regret it because for a regulator versed in what it means, it means thousands and thousands of pages that would fall into this space and we would spend our lifetime trying to clean it Read More ›

A federal takeover of the Internet, according to President Obama’s former special assistant for science, technology and innovation policy, is as simple as formally relabelling Internet access services as “telecommunications services,” rather than “information services,” as they are called now. Susan Crawford argues that this wouldn’t be unprecedented at all. Until August 2005, the commission required that companies providing high-speed access to the Internet over telephone lines not discriminate among Web sites * * * * But under the Bush administration the F.C.C. deregulated high-speed Internet providers, arguing that cable Internet access was different from the kind of high-speed Internet access provided by phone companies * * * * This was a radical move, because it reversed the long-held assumption Read More ›