[opendtv] F.C.C. Is Deluged With Comments on Net Neutrality Rules - NYTimes.com
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 07:35:49 -0400
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/technology/a-deluge-of-comment-on-net-rules.html?ref=technology&_r=0
F.C.C. Is Deluged With Comments on Net Neutrality Rules
From legal briefs to pithy one-liners, the public is having its say on the
proposed rules that guide how digital bits flow across the Internet.
As of Tuesday, there were about 780,000 comments, far more than for any
previous rule-making proceeding before the Federal Communications Commission.
The agency is fine-tuning its rules to secure an open Internet, after a
federal-court decision in January said it had to rethink its approach.
After the court ruling, Tom Wheeler, chairman of the F.C.C., proposed a path in
step with the court ruling that would explicitly allow “commercially
reasonable” deals. Such deals are typically for faster streaming of Internet
content between broadband operators — phone and cable companies like Verizon,
AT&T and Comcast — and online media distributors like Netflix and Google’s
YouTube.
Mr. Wheeler’s plan, according to its many critics, would open the door to a
two-tier Internet of fast and slow lanes, with affluent companies and
households enjoying premium service and everyone else fighting traffic: a death
knell for the open Internet and its democratic ethos of “net neutrality.”
Kevin Werbach, a former F.C.C. counsel and an associate professor at the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said, “The way this has been
framed for a lot of people is that the F.C.C. is trying to change the Internet
as we know it.”
Mr. Wheeler, who has been a lobbyist for the cable and telecommunications
industries, has said that will not be the case, and that the agency will set a
“high bar” for commercially reasonable arrangements. He has also said he is
open to other ways to both accommodate the court ruling and maintain an open
Internet, and the F.C.C. has welcomed public comments.
The deadline for the first round of comments was Tuesday, but has been extended
to Friday. A second period for so-called reply comments will run until Sept. 10.
Despite the flood of comments, the open Internet debate has a way to go before
it matches the public reaction the agency absorbed after a televised glimpse of
Janet Jackson’s nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004, a “wardrobe
malfunction” seen around the world. That incident elicited 1.4 million messages
from the public, but the F.C.C. classifies those as complaints rather than
comments.
A sampling of the many thousands of individual comments posted on the
commission’s website is heavily weighted toward urging the F.C.C. to take
strong action to preserve net neutrality and criticizing Mr. Wheeler’s proposal
as not doing that.
“Net neutrality is crucial to fair competition and free speech,” Maya Cook
wrote, “and this proposal is a disaster in the making.”
There is an anticorporate tinge to many comments, mainly directed toward the
phone and cable companies.
“Any regulation that would allow soulless, noncitizen corporations to
monetarily benefit at the expense of lawful citizens whom the government serves
should not be enacted,” Michael W. Derington wrote.
The individual submissions also underline the success of get-out-the-comments
advocacy efforts like the website Battleforthe.net, which allows supporters to
type in their name and email address and submit a form letter that begins, “Net
neutrality is the First Amendment of the Internet.”
The court-ordered retooling of the commission’s “Open Internet Order” of 2010
has touched off a surge in lobbying efforts by two sets of big corporations —
Internet companies on one side, phone and cable companies on the other.
Continue reading the main story
Select Comments Filed to the F.C.C.
“Unlike consumers, broadband Internet access providers have a horse in the race
— whether it is their affiliated content or which content provider will pay the
most for the enhanced or prioritized access.” — The Internet Association, an
industry group representing Google, Netflix and other technology and media
companies
“In no other area of the economy does the government ban voluntary market
transactions (here, for example, quality-of-service enhancements) specifically
in order to prevent those with superior resources from offering better services
to their own customers.” — AT&T
“Your proposed path would open the door to widespread discrimination online. It
would give Internet service providers the green light to implement
pay-for-priority schemes that would be a disaster for startups, nonprofits and
everyday Internet users who cannot afford these unnecessary tolls.” — Maureen
McGinley, an individual
“Broadband is a more advanced technology than phone service, but in the 21st
century it performs the same essential function. Consumers and businesses
cannot live without this vital connection to each other and to the world around
them. Accordingly, it would be appropriate for the F.C.C. to reclassify
broadband to reflect the vital role the Internet plays in carrying our most
important information and greatest ideas.” — Several United States senators,
including Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts
The Internet companies routinely make deals for improved treatment of their
media content with network operators, so consumers get better, faster service.
But new rules from the F.C.C. could improve the bargaining position of one side
or the other by shifting the competitive landscape.
In that sense, the F.C.C. is a referee in price negotiations between two camps
of powerful, deep-pocketed corporations.
The two sides have made their stances clear in their formal comments to the
commission. The Internet Association, whose members include Google, Facebook,
Netflix and Amazon, stated that today’s Internet is an “engine of economic
growth, innovation and democratic values,” which it termed a “virtuous circle.”
It added that “the Internet’s continued success is not inevitable,” saying that
“broadband Internet access providers continue to have the ability and the
incentive” to interrupt that engine.
In a statement, Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, said,
“The F.C.C. must act to create strong, enforceable net neutrality rules and
apply them equally to both wireless and wireline providers.”
The phone and cable companies, by contrast, are resisting what they call
“prescriptive rules,” as Verizon described possible constraints in a comment.
The broadband network operators agree that the Internet is thriving, and thus,
according to a Verizon comment, that “there is little call for regulators to
intervene,” other than on a case-by-case basis.
What the phone and cable companies most fear is an option open to the F.C.C.:
to oversee the Internet under its Title II authority. That would mean declaring
the Internet a common carrier, a utility, which they say would be a misguided
overreaction.
In a recent blog post, James W. Cicconi, senior executive vice president for
external and legislative affairs at AT&T, said the price-gouging tactics the
industry’s critics fear were “unlikely hypotheticals” that the phone and cable
companies pledged not to do as the F.C.C. grappled with this issue in 2010.
“Not a single Internet service provider then or now has asserted a desire or
right to engage in any of these practices,” Mr. Cicconi wrote, “to create ‘fast
lanes and slow lanes.’ ”
The outpouring of public comments extends well beyond the details of the
F.C.C.’s regulatory authority or the lobbying of major corporations, said Tim
Wu, a professor at the Columbia Law School who helped create the concept of net
neutrality.
“This is about a fear of closing of the technological frontier,” Mr. Wu said,
“of the fear of the Internet becoming too corporatized — no longer this place
where even if you start small, you do have a fighting chance.”
The F.C.C. is expected to make a decision on open Internet rules by the end of
2014 or early 2015. Whatever the commissioners eventually decide, one thing is
likely: Their decision will face a legal challenge. It was a suit by Verizon
that led to the court ruling earlier this year.
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