ACA's Gessner Warns of Unregulated Edge Gatekeepers

American Cable Association Chairman Bob Gessner warns of a time when unregulated edge provider gatekeepers withhold their contents as a negotiating tactic, but signaled that time is already here.

Gessner, president of MCTV, which has has about 47,000 customers in Massilon (OH), said that if he had a "grave concern" about the Internet, it was that the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet order, which prevents Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling or paid prioritization, does not address the entire network. Recently, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler reiterated that recent revelations about Netflix slowing traffic were not a net neutrality issue because the rules don't apply to content providers like Netflix. "I think many consumers have fooled into thinking that network neutrality applies to the entire network, and it does not," said Chairman Wheeler. Gessner conceded that, as an ISP, he was one of the gatekeepers of the Internet, but said that at the other end of the net there is another gate, the one that lets content onto the Internet. He said that was controlled by the so-called virtuous edge providers like Netflix, Google, Viacom and CBS. He said ISPs' gate is regulated, while an edge provider is totally unregulated and free to block, throttle and redirect. "It is definitely a tilted playing field and my concern is that edge providers are about to 'Cable-ize' the Internet," he said, a "time when edge providers come to the ISP and demand payment otherwise their content won't be available. And that has already happened. It has happened for cash and it has happened as leverage in negotiations."