Slashdot Mirror
Tom Wheeler Defends Title II Rules, Accuses Pai of Helping Monopolists (arstechnica.com)
simkel shares a report from Ars Technica: Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler spoke out against the FCC's proposed repeal of net neutrality rules this week, saying the repeal will help monopoly broadband providers abuse their dominant position. There's "a monopoly provider for three-quarters of the homes in America, and no choice," Wheeler said in a forum (video) in Arlington, Virginia Monday hosted by US Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). "When you've only got one provider, who makes the rules? The provider makes the rules." Wheeler was referring to FCC data that shows most Americans live in areas with either one provider of high-speed broadband (at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream) or none at all. With the FCC's new Republican leadership seeking to overturn net neutrality rules, "the question becomes, will giant companies be able to exploit their monopoly position?" Wheeler said. "Who is going to stand up for consumers? Who is going to stand up for innovation? And who is going to stand up for the most important network for determining our future in the 21st century?"
75% of people only have one provider choice because of government grants of monopoly status.
How about some other options?
* ISPs cannot be content providers or affiliated with content providers--they can be a data pipe or a content provider but never both
* In areas where local government has granted access rights to only one provider, use PSC model to mandate that that provider must provide access to other providers for the backbone to the pole (e.g., the gas line to my house was built by one company, but I can chose to get my gas from any provider in the market via the same pipe)
* Local government could build the pipes and lease them to all providers at the same rates--we can't have 100 companies digging up roads to bury cable or pipes, whether it be for electricity, gas, water, sewer, cable/fiber for TV/internet, but a coordinated infrastructure contracted by local government that does all of the above and then leases non-exclusive access to providers makes a lot of sense
Free market is best market.
However, free does not mean free from regulations. Without regs, powerful companies form and control the market.
We do not have a free market for internet.
IMO, regulations should be designed to keep markets free and healthy. This way the market can respond to Changing conditions rather than waiting on congress, who is often ten years behind.
My idea is this:
Legislatively separate the markets that have been used to form internet trusts. Basically, trust bust.
Mandate that you can only own one of the last mile, the ISP, or content creation.
Make laws regarding collision between such companies.
Suddenly, you would have your choice of ISP over whatever last mile connects you. And ISPs would have no perverse incentive to control what media you consume.
BAM.
"When you've only got one provider, who makes the rules? The provider makes the rules."
When you've got a hundred providers, who makes the rules? The provider. I suspect Mr Wheeler is being disingenuous here. He wants to be the one to make the rules. Central rule making by government has never been shown to be a way to encourage "more providers" of a service. If anything it has the opposite effect. Mostly this comes through the increase regulations' cost to startups. More intense regulatory burdens, from administrative to functional, nearly always benefit the larger companies. This works against a desire to increase options and competition. Plus, from a regulatory commission standpoint, the fewer, and larger, players you have the better it is for you because that means more lobbying.
"the question becomes, will giant companies be able to exploit their monopoly position?"
Monopoly abuses is not part of your job, Mr. Wheeler. We already have laws for that, and a means to enforce them. If your concern is abuse of monopoly, talk to the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for dealing with that, not the Federal Communications Commission.
"Who is going to stand up for consumers? Who is going to stand up for innovation? And who is going to stand up for the most important network for determining our future in the 21st century?"
Not the FCC. The FCC can't stand for innovation, it moves too slow and enshrines technological choices into law/regs which are too slow to be corrected, and the penalties of them are applied nationally rather than locally. The FTC has the role of "standing up for consumers", not the FCC. The "most important network of our future" is still people, so the FCC would be stretching very heavily to even attempt to "stand up" for that.
Basically, if he wants to feel like he is standing up for consumers, he needs to transfer to the FTC.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Interestingly enough, there was something a lot like a free market for ISPs at one point: when consumer Internet access was via dial-up. All you had to do to be an ISP was to get a dedicated Internet circuit (like a T1 with a heady 1.544 Mbps) and a number of POTS lines (say 10 to 40 or so) with modems on them, and you were an ISP! (With 56Kbps modems your service speed was "smoking!" At that point the "phone company" didn't even really know what Internet service was, and cable companies just provided TV channels.
Then Digital Subscriber Line came along, typically deployed as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), with download speeds that might have been 768Kbps, no need to tie up your house's phone line with your Internet connection, and the connection itself was "always on!" The paying public abandoned dial-up ISPs, switching to DSL. DSL was more limited access on the provider side, because you had to be in the telephone company CO. There were some legal provisions for telephone companies to provide access to their copper lines for alternative DSL service ISPs, but it really crunched down the number of competitors as the "telephone companies" realized that there was a lot of money to be made as an ISP. Verizon's move to FIOS seems to have been in part inspired by the fact that although they had to share access to the copper cable plant, they could install the fiber cable plant and NOT have to shared it. At most of the locations that I'm aware of, as soon as a household switched to FIOS, the copper plant was disconnected from that house (loophole in the rules I think - they only had to share the copper if it was connected to the house, they couldn't be forced to provide a copper connection to a house for use by an alternative provider).
Cable companies got into it as they had their own cable plant and realized they could make $$$ just like the phone company of Internet service. Since cable Internet and FIOS offered much better bandwidth than DSL, the public switched again...
So - each time the public has voted for increased bandwidth, the public has also voted to constrain competition, albeit unknowingly. It this point, many households in the US need Internet almost as much as they need electricity and water. Its a utility and should be under the common carrier rules (in my opinion).
It happened before, wasn't too pretty when SCOTUS ruled in 1920s Commerce Dept had no enforcement powers. Radio waves became the wild west as stations changed freq and power levels to whatever they wanted, listeners gave up and receiver sales plummeted (ref Gordon West book on General Radio Licensing Manual). More of that adventure from back in the days:
"Pending Radio Legislation"
from the magazine Radio Age, July 1924
CONGRESS has adjourned without acting either way on pending radio legislation, according to the news dispatches from Washington.
Unless a special session is called, which does not seem likely at this time, radio will be untouched by legal attachments until next year, at least.
The two most important measures which were shelved by the adjournment of the well-meaning but unusually deliberative governmental bodies are the White Bill and the Dill Bill. The first proposes to establish governmental control over radio broadcasting, reception and perhaps the industry eventually. This bill, while not viciously attacked, did not go through because some representatives of the people wanted to know just why such a young and untried industry as radio should suffer the bonds of law so soon. Accordingly, it is unlikely that the White Bill will ever become a law -- so the fans may rest assured they will not be hindered for some time to come in that respect.
The Dill Bill is more far reaching in its scope. It is liberal and fair-minded. It asks that the copyright laws be amended so that copyrighted music can be broadcast without the payment of levies to the music publishers. Although this bill has been opposed at every step by huge organizations and moneyed interests, as well as several prominent music publishers, it was about to be passed with a fair majority when Congress adjourned.
There is still hope for the Dill Bill, then, and we hope that when it finally reaches the President's desk it will represent the result of a fair compromise between the broadcasters and the music publishers, in the interests of the fan who listens to broadcast music and helps the sale of the published article by buying the pieces he likes best.
Government legislation, we believe, appears to be the only means yet suggested which offers any kind of a solution to the bitter enmity between the broadcasters and the so-called music "trust."
Radio's recent jump to prominence in official circles such as Congress is only one indication of its growing importance. Big capital interests, legislators and public spirited citizens are realizing more and more that radio will some day control the destinies of our nation; and accordingly they are setting out to prevent its too sudden growth to an unwieldy influence. Quick government control, the legislators aver, will prevent radio from becoming a menace instead of the help and pleasure it should be.
In a measure these radio-legislators are right. Something must be done to prevent the air from becoming a bedlam of tangled wave lengths. Something must be done to prevent the ether from being clogged with propaganda and useless stuff that will discourage interest in the world's latest miracle.
If legislation works along those lines, it will be beneficial. But if it takes a political trend, this country will see a united uprising of righteously aroused fans -- lovers and promoters of the good in radio.
mfwright@batnet.com