Kevin Werbach

The Trump re-election campaign’s wireless open access proposal was a poorly vetted scheme possibly intended to score political points. It was squelched almost immediately after it became public, as shocked White House staff members complained that it contradicted the administration’s support for competing wireless networks. The twist? Open access wireless is actually a terrific idea.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission had a great run. Under six Chairmen, Democrat and Republican, the FCC played an important role in one of the greatest economic and cultural transformations in history: the global rise of the converged digital communications environment that now pervades our lives. The agency wasn’t the source of the entrepreneurial ideas, technical innovations, and massive investments, of course. All that took place predominantly in the private sector. Yet without the FCC, the Internet ecosystem today would be different, and in most ways worse: less vibrant, less advanced, less competitive, less open, and less reflective of American leadership and values. Along the way, this tiny agency—a tenth the size of the Environmental Protection Agency—became a highly visible and important player in critical public policy debates.

And now, I fear, the FCC’s moment in the sun is coming to an end. The Trump FCC may become at best insignificant, and at worst, a tool for mischief and dirty tricks that will weaken the foundations of our democracy.

[Kevin Werbach is a Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania]

[Commentary] Network neutrality is in jeopardy -- just not in the way you might have heard.

In implementing network neutrality, some differentiation of traffic must be allowed on the Internet, even encouraged.

The real question is whether Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed rule is so much worse than what came before. Under what we understand the FCC proposal to be, access providers can't block, can't degrade, can't arbitrarily favor certain applications, and can't favor their own traffic.

The major change in the new proposal concerns so-called paid prioritization agreements. In other words, the new rules appear to allow a broadband provider to offer content providers the option of faster or more reliable delivery for a supplemental fee.

Under the old rules, the FCC didn't prohibit such deals, but said it was skeptical they would meet its discrimination test. In the new proposal, the FCC appears to mandate that paid prioritization offerings be "commercially reasonable." Calling paid prioritization "discrimination" is a matter of semantics.

Indeed, the traditional "Title II common carrier" model (which some network neutrality advocates favor) has allowed different levels of service -- paid prioritization in other words -- as long as the prioritized service level was available to all comers. As for the FCC's apparent proposal, it does not encourage or require paid prioritization. At most, the proposal would allow some commercial offerings -- subject to negotiation between the two firms -- to allow for a higher level of service.

How to defend and implement network neutrality is not as simple as banning all forms of paid prioritization. What really matters is ensuring that the broadband environment continues to provide space for tomorrow's innovators to develop new, disruptive offerings. When the FCC releases the proposed rules for comment, we should all focus on that criterion to evaluate whether they are sufficient and effective.

[Werbach is Wharton Professor and founder of Supernova Group; Weiser is Dean and Thomson Professor at the University of Colorado Law School]