Regulatory classification

[Commentary] The more we debate Title II versus Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, the more it is clear that everyone wants the same outcome: we all want an open internet. The issue is determining which path will best enable the internet to be most accessible to Americans for opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship, with the requisite transparency and privacy protections. Let’s end this debate once and for all.

A bipartisan Congress should put its differences aside to create a federal law that governs the internet. The solution to this is problem is not whether we go with Title I or Title II — the solution lies in “Title X,” a new law that will expressly set out the rules of the road for the entire internet ecosystem. The simple fact is — and I think most of us agree — that we do not want anyone to arbitrarily block or slow content on the web. We do not want discrimination in the flow of traffic on the internet. We want transparency in how our internet usage is impacted by Internet service providers (ISPs), edge providers and the government. Further, as we build out these digital networks, every community must be free of digital and infrastructure redlining.

Title X would be a law that harmonizes the ecosystem that has nurtured the innovation and led to the U.S. becoming a global leader in speed, access and adoption, while ensuring strong consumer protections — across all platforms and regardless of their provider. If ever we needed an X factor, we need it now, if we are to maximize the power and the promise of the internet.

[Kim Keenan is the president and CEO of Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council]

Network neutrality advocates have set Sept 27 for their next coordinated protest of rolling back the Title II classification, as the Republican-majority Federal Communications Commission has proposed. The July 12 network Day of Action was an online and FCC-centric protest, the Sept 27 Day of Advocacy will be about facetime with policymakers, both on the Hill and at the FCC. According to Public Knowledge, one of the backers of the protest, the September event will feature participants going to Capitol Hill to make their case. The next day the protest will move to the FCC for the monthly open meeting to "let the commissioners know how you feel about net neutrality."

As Internet-based distributors move up and down the stack to become vertically integrated platforms with a preferred suite of affiliated content, there is a growing concern among policymakers that innovation among independent content creators and websites may be threatened. More fundamentally, the Internet is not one thing—it is many things, and our current regulatory regimes are struggling to address that complexity. These new platforms give rise to potential conflicts of interest, in which it might pay for a vertically-integrated platform owner to sacrifice some profits (if any) in its distribution division in order to support an affiliated (or favored, third-party) application.

This essay focuses on identifying and fixing this potential regulatory gap when crafting a “net neutrality” policy—a set of rules or standards designed to spur innovation at the “edge” of the Internet by preventing Internet service providers (ISPs) from engaging in discriminatory conduct. But the essay could just as easily be directed at the powerful online platforms wielded by Amazon, Facebook, or Google. The applicability of this remedy to other parts of the Internet is natural, not because market power is paramount there (though it certainly exists), but because there is a large enough threat to innovation in adjacent markets to online shopping, social media, and search, respectively.

[Singer is Principal, Economists Inc., and Senior Fellow, George Washington Institute of Public Policy. The author has served as a consultant to both ISPs and independent cable networks in regulatory matters.]

Apparently, House Commerce Committee Republican leadership got together, both in person and by phone, with the major trade associations on both sides of the network neutrality issue August 7 in a series of meeting throughout the day to discuss possible legislative pathways to clarifying the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality authority. The associations involved, according to sources, included NCTA: The Internet and Television Association, CTIA (the wireless industry), USTelecom, and the Internet Association. The associations were asked for, and answered with, suggestions for changes, updates, and input, or alternatives, based on a starting point of draft bills dating back a couple of years that included no blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization, though with paid prioritization language that was flexible enough not to be a blanket prohibition, say, only prohibiting “anti-competitive” or discriminatory paid prioritization.

[Commentary] More than 15 million comments have been filed with the Federal Communications Commission on its Restoring Internet Freedom docket, which focuses on the concept of net neutrality, and specifically Title II regulations imposed in 2015 under the previous administration. While this colossal number includes many sentiments – including an unsettling number of foreign and some 6 million fake comments – it does not contain significant representation from poor, minority and senior Americans. Media and communications scholars have documented that online activism is the province of the digital elite and largely aligns with race and class. Herein lies an unsettling problem.

"Digital democracy" has been promoted to enable underrepresented consumers to become more politically involved. This seems intuitive, but the reality is that digitization can, if anything, exacerbate the problem of these individuals not participating. The reality is that Title II ignores and hurts underserved communities. It prohibits a free market for data which allows these individuals to enjoy free and reduced price content and offerings. It has cost the nation some $35 billion annually in lost participation from content-side actors and advertisers which would otherwise support internet access to these groups. It is also responsible for deterring the creation of some 750,000 jobs.

[Roslyn Layton is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.]

While the Internet seems ubiquitous, digital divides remain, particularly across incomes. In the US, adults making less than $30,000 per year are significantly less likely to use any type of digital device and to have broadband Internet access in their home. The 2015 Open Internet Order was adopted, in part, to reduce the divide by expediting broadband deployment and removing obstacles to the market.

In their recent work “The Digital Divide and Other Economic Considerations for Network Neutrality,” authors Michelle Connolly, Clement Lee, and Renhao Tan question whether or not the 2015 OIO is likely to help bridge the digital divide. They argue that despite its rhetoric, the 2015 OIO did not properly consider its effect on the digital divide. In fact, net neutrality rules may depress investment, exacerbate the digital divide, and decrease the quality and diversity of Internet content.

Imagine if you took every single gripe you've had with Verizon over the past five years — the time it blocked Nexus 7 tablets for five months; the time it forced you to pay $20 per month for tethering; the time it tried to make you use a mobile wallet app called "ISIS" — and finally put your foot down. For a year, you spend free moments holed up in library stacks, speaking with experts, and researching and writing a sprawling legal complaint about the company's many, many misdeeds. And then you file it all with the Federal Communications Commission, hoping to get some payback. That's exactly what Alex Nguyen did. And one day very soon, Verizon may have to answer for it.

When he wrapped up in the middle of 2016, Nguyen paid a $225 filing fee and handed his complaint over to the FCC. It would end up being the only formal complaint filed under the net neutrality rules. Now one year after Nguyen's initial filing date, all the arguing is over, and the case is the in hands of the commission's Enforcement Bureau to either shoot down, deliver a fine, or demand Verizon make some changes. "Verizon and I made our cases," Nguyen said. "It looks as though [the FCC's Enforcement Bureau] staff any day now could make a decision."

AT&T’s CFO John Stephens said that FirstNet’s pre-emption requirements for public safety users present “a challenge with the net neutrality process because you are giving prioritized service to police, firefighters.” “But quite frankly I think everyone would agree that that’s probably a good thing,” explained Stephens. "It’s just one of the uniquenesses of some of the other arguments that we have to deal with.”

When questioned about the topic further, Stephens said that net neutrality proponents didn’t really take FirstNet’s public-safety pre-emption requirements into account when drafting net neutrality guidelines. “We have the ability today to give [FirstNet public-safety users] preferential treatment. What we’ll have by the end of the year is what we call ‘relentless pre-emption,’ such that if there’s capacity for 10 calls and 10 calls are being used, and a firefighter gets on, one of the 10 people gets booted off and the firefighter gets in,” he said. “Quite frankly, I don’t think they thought about it [when crafting net neutrality guidelines]. The FirstNet process has been around since 9/11. It came out of the 9/11 events, and so that had been out there for a long time, and so I don’t even think it was even considered.”

House Commerce Committee staff, as expected, met with interested parties on network neutrality legislation, but they wouldn't say which companies or groups showed up. Remember, the committee originally invited the CEOs of Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon and Netflix to testify at a hearing along with chief executives of the major telecoms, but later extended (apparently indefinitely) the deadline for them to respond.

"We are pleased that so many stakeholders in the internet and tech communities have provided substantive feedback in our efforts to protect a free and open internet," said committee spokesman Zach Hunter, declining to name attendees. "We look forward to continued progress and providing certainty for both businesses and consumers alike with a permanent, legislative solution." It's all part of a Republican effort to push forward a net neutrality bill, which has been stalled amid opposition from Democrats intent on keeping the fight focused on the Federal Communications Commission. According to the committee, Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) still plans to hold a Sept. 7 hearing on the topic.

[Commentary] Big Cable’s #DitchTheBox proposal is one of the most recent examples of an industry’s inability to self-regulate in the absence of federal regulation, and many of the same companies offering pay-TV services are the same companies providing broadband internet. Big Cable’s past history of discrediting its own promises via its behavior epitomizes why it cannot be left to self-regulate. Big Cable said it would do one thing for consumers when faced with federal regulation, then did nothing when that threat evaporated. Replacing the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules with a voluntary system where broadband providers dictate their own rules (or lack of them) will likely result in the same scenario. In the end, we’d be exchanging strong, court-tested net neutrality rules with a series of ISP-designed loopholes that would serve as a catalyst for market abuse -- and more consumer ripoffs.