Blog - Page 18

Senior Fellow George Gilder has shot a little arrow into the Obama Administration plans for “net neutrality”. The Tuesday Wall Street Journal carries George’s attack. The author of Life After Television, Microcosm and Telecosm, among others, has been trying hard to make the point that the very cutting edge of our economy is high technology and its abundant success is the product of freedom from government over-regulation. Obama and Co., he says, hope to change that. Net neutrality is Orwellian. It is further evidence of America’s careening drive into a planned economy–and stagnation.

Although Congress directed the FCC to allow broadcasters to offer “ancillary or supplementary services on designated frequencies as may be consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” it obviously hasn’t worked. A column by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. offers some clues: Ask the media bankers and investors at a recent FCC roundtable. To a man and woman, they said the FCC’s stringent ownership rules have only cut broadcasters off from the capital to remake their businesses for the digital age. And now, as Jenkins further notes, it’s no secret that planning is underway at the FCC to coax broadcasters into voluntarily relinquishing some of their spectrum so it can be assigned for mobile voice and broadband services. Obviously the Read More ›

The government expansionists have had their eyes on the Internet ever since Al Gore claims he invented it. Of course, the Feds’ DARPA did help birth the Internet, but there is no reason why Washington now should imitate the Iranian mullahs or the Chinese and start restricting access and imposing financial or technical controls. It is not just because the technology is new that it has made such a huge contribution to our economy; it’s also because the new technology has been relatively unfettered by the government. The whole subject of federal regulation re-emerges in a major way in coming weeks. Watch this space. Meanwhile, Mark Landsbaum of the Orange County Register (in a column that I missed when it Read More ›

The Georgia State Senate approved a sweeping reform of the state’s telecommunications laws by a vote of 46 to 4 (see HB 168, as passed by the Senate). The Senate bill Eliminates legacy telephone regulation that restricts competiton by creating artificial competitive advantages and disadvantages so that VoIP, wireless and wireline carriers will all have an equal opportunity to compete. Reduces inflated intrastate access charges for smaller rural telephone service providers and new entrants to the same level as interstate access charges. Sunsets Georgia’s Universal Access Fund, after providing a partial replacement of lost access revenues for ILECs who provide high-cost services (subject to a fully contested PSC hearing before allowing any fund distribution). HB 168 now goes back to Read More ›

From George Gilder’s column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s friends at Google are hectoring China on Internet policy. Although commanding twice as many Internet users as we do, China originates fewer viruses and scams than does the U.S. and with Taiwan produces comparable amounts of Internet gear. As an authoritarian regime, it obviously will not be amenable to an open and anonymous net regime. Protecting information on the Internet is a responsibility of U.S. corporations and their security tools, not the State Department. The full column is here.

A study by Larry F. Darby, Joseph P. Fuhr, Jr., and Stephen B. Pociask of the American Consumer Institute concludes: Historical data suggest that for every $1 billion in revenue, “core” network companies provided 2,329 jobs, while non-network “edge” companies provided 1,199 (about half as many). This indicates that Net Neutrality rules that reduce revenues and growth for network companies, and transfer benefits (revenue or growth prospects) to non-network companies, are a barrier to job creation. Read the study here.

While the FCC considers whether to impose nondiscrimination and transparency regulation to all forms of broadband Internet access, Public Knowledge is proposing to subject broadband services to the same pervasive, overlapping, heavy-handed regulatory framework as century-old telephone service (see this and this) — a framework which a former FCC chairman during the Clinton Administration described as a hopeless “morass.”
PK is worried the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit might rule in a pending case that the FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction to regulate broadband. The group also is fretting over a recent observation by AT&T that, “with each passing day, more and more communications service migrate to broadband and IP-based services,” leaving the public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) and plain old telephone service (“POTS”) we all grew up with “as relics of a by-gone era.”

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Broadband regulation is justified — according to Lawrence E. Strickling, who is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information — because a recent FCC report indicates that “[a]t most 2 providers of fixed broadband services will pass most homes. Furthermore, “50-80% of homes may get speeds they need only from one provider.”
Christine A. Varney, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust concurs, noting

It is premature to predict whether the wireless broadband firms will be able to discipline the behavior of the established wireline providers, but early developments are mildly encouraging.

These comments essentially parrot the views of some left-wing advocacy groups who are trying to engineer a revolution in communications policy, such as Free Press and Public Knowledge.

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The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has a great article on the future of telecommunications in the state. The article prominently features Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder. Click here to read.

At CNET News, Larry Downes writes that the Obama administration has lost some of its enthusiasm for aggressive regulatory intervention of the Internet. The latest evidence, according to Downes, is a comment this week by White House deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin noting that the FCC has yet to determine whether Net neutrality is needed to preserve the open Internet. The administration is clearly backtracking. But why? Part of the reason is some unexpected political pressure, including a letter signed by 72 congressional Democrats opposing the FCC’s proposed rules soon after they were announced. But the bigger explanation is the growing priority within the administration for nationwide, affordable broadband service. In the course of preparing the national broadband plan, mandated by Read More ›