Yesterday CCIA
filed comments in the Commerce Department’s proceeding on obstructions to the global free flow of information imposed by foreign governments. Our member companies are concerned that requirements to monitor, filter or censor online content operate as protectionist international trade barriers in the 21st century information economy.
There is no shortage of specific case examples we are describing for our government in the hopes of exposing the negative economic impact of such restrictions.
Companies are battling foreign government authorities individually on this front. But as CCIA pointed out in an
op ed last week, we really need their own government and like-minded countries as well to make the free flow of online commerce a higher priority on their diplomatic and trade agenda.
Meanwhile, FCC Commissioners are working on the very first law to preserve public access to the open Internet here in the United States. In this case, the threat comes not from government, but from dominant monopoly and duopoly Internet access providers. Some IAPs want the freedom to sell their limited broadband capacity and quality of service guarantees to the highest commercial bidders -- regardless of what impact that might have on the quality and price of everyone else’s Internet access.
Most American residential consumers, students, entrepreneurs and non profit organizations do not realize they currently have absolutely no right to broadband Internet access like they do for landline voice telephone service that enables them to call anywhere anytime. We take Internet access to everything, anytime for granted, but it is no sure thing. Why?
The answer lies in the dismantling over the past decade of the so-called common carrier telecommunications model for broadband Internet access, which is now officially a totally deregulated information service. Nevermind that most people think Internet access connections are critical telecommunications infrastructure, that’s at least as important as landline voice phone service, and maybe more so.
In Canada and many places in Europe, wholesale interconnection regulations mandate common carrier style nondiscrimination and separation of local network operations from information services. The result is much greater competition among dozens of ISPs for your retail business.
In the absence of any such comprehensive regulation of dominant access providers here, the FCC strives to establish the first basic rules for the owners of our local broadband roads. Instead of rules of the road for drivers, the FCC is attempting to tell the private owners of our broadband access “roads” that they 1) must not let pavement degrade into potholes, even in poor neighborhoods, 2) must plow away snowfall to keep routes passable, 3) must not erect new tollbooths to enter the most popular cities. Translated to Internet access, we are talking about quality connections for everyone without blockages or extra fees for certain content based on the business model of your broadband conduit provider, or how much of a commercial interest it has in this or that content provider.
CCIA has no problem with putting heavy bandwidth users in a pricier tier of broadband service. That’s just like the heaviest users of highway having to buy more gas or pay existing tolls more frequently.
One thing is for sure: in the absence of absolute clarity from the FCC on its open Internet rules, the telecom and cable companies will behave like a typical teenager, fully exploiting every possible exception, loophole and ambiguity to get the freedom they so desperately want. That’s what they did in the context of the FCC’s implementation of the pro-competitive Telecom Act of 1996, and it’s the reason why most local telephone and broadband competitors could not survive.
In the context of public access to the open Internet, the FCC should not allow the commercial freedoms of dominant telcom and cable Internet access providers to trample the quality and affordability of critical broadband connections for American households, students, small business people and innovators.
The FCC's "6 principles" proposal from late last year would have preserved Open Internet access for these users, and the public record supports it. But the latest plan relies on less firm legal ground and would not give people the same protections for broadband Internet access that they have for their other telecommunications services. Most understand the need to compromise in Washington, but this plan leaves Internet users vulnerable to the will of dominant monopoly and duopoly companies. Further, it leaves the US's diplomatic and trade agenda vulnerable to criticism that we think corporate blocking, filtering or censoring information is OK -- just not government intrusions.
