<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace">Thanks for forwarding that, Richard; a great</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace">article.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace">- <span class="" style>TLT</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 1:00 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:1st-mile-nm-request@mailman.dcn.org" target="_blank">1st-mile-nm-request@mailman.dcn.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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Today's Topics:<br>
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1. Susan Crawford: Back to the Digital Drawing Board<br>
(Richard Lowenberg)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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Message: 1<br>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:12:08 -0700<br>
From: Richard Lowenberg <<a href="mailto:rl@1st-mile.com">rl@1st-mile.com</a>><br>
Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Susan Crawford: Back to the Digital Drawing<br>
Board<br>
To: 1st mile nm <<a href="mailto:1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org">1st-mile-nm@mailman.dcn.org</a>><br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:3474bc0306dfa42c3d71235deefc8e6f@dcn.org">3474bc0306dfa42c3d71235deefc8e6f@dcn.org</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed<br>
<br>
There has been much news in the last couple of days about the DC<br>
Circuit Court decision in Verizon vs. the FCC.<br>
Susan Crawford, I think, gives a good short assessment of the decision<br>
and of possible next steps.<br>
RL<br>
-----------<br>
<br>
<a href="http://nyti.ms/1eVI1AI" target="_blank">http://nyti.ms/1eVI1AI</a><br>
<br>
Back to the Digital Drawing Board<br>
<br>
By SUSAN CRAWFORD JAN. 16, 2014<br>
<br>
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ? IN less than 20 years, ubiquitous, reliable<br>
high-speed Internet access has gone from a vision to a novelty to a<br>
fundamental part of the American economy ? not to mention our civic,<br>
social and personal lives.<br>
<br>
Central to this is the principle of net neutrality: that the cables<br>
that bring the Internet into our homes should be there for all to use<br>
equally. Whether you are a content provider or a subscriber, as long as<br>
you pay your bill, it shouldn?t matter whether you use them to send<br>
email or connect to Netflix or YouTube.<br>
<br>
That, however, may change, thanks to a circuit court ruling this week<br>
in the case of Verizon v. the Federal Communications Commission. The<br>
decision deferred to an old F.C.C. determination that telecom cables,<br>
the primary conduit for Internet access, are not utilities, and cannot<br>
be regulated as such, leaving American businesses unprotected from the<br>
depredations of a handful of giant Internet access providers.<br>
<br>
Service providers can now strike a deal with YouTube to get faster<br>
delivery speeds to customers, and Comcast, which owns sizable content<br>
assets itself, can use its control of the cables to get an edge over<br>
rival content providers.<br>
<br>
But rather than despair, this is a moment of opportunity. The court<br>
didn?t make its decision because it was opposed to net neutrality, but<br>
because the F.C.C. had painted itself into a regulatory corner, having<br>
developed a convoluted, contradictory set of rules regarding Internet<br>
access over the last decade.<br>
<br>
The decision now forces the commission to go back to square one and<br>
reverse the industry-compromised decisions that set it on this path in<br>
the first place and that have long undermined its authority over this<br>
crucial infrastructure.<br>
<br>
The problem began in 2002, when Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman<br>
who now heads the cable industry?s trade association, decided to exempt<br>
high-<br>
<br>
speed Internet access from so-called common carriage regulation. Those<br>
rules, applied most notably to phone service, bar providers from<br>
discriminatory service ? everyone who pays a phone bill gets the same<br>
quality of service.<br>
<br>
But Mr. Powell reasoned that Internet access was an information<br>
service, distinct from the traditional communications infrastructure,<br>
and that competition would be better than oversight at protecting<br>
Americans from any abuses by access providers.<br>
<br>
It?s a good thing the F.C.C. is staffed by so many lawyers, because it<br>
was soon faced with complaints by consumer groups and Internet content<br>
providers alleging that companies like Comcast, far from being checked<br>
by competition, were using the lack of competition in local Internet<br>
service, combined with the lack of oversight, to favor their own<br>
commercial interests.<br>
<br>
After it was revealed in 2008 that Comcast had interfered with access<br>
to certain file-sharing networking applications, the commission<br>
performed an about-face, ordering the company to adhere to a new<br>
approach for managing bandwidth demand.<br>
<br>
This put the commission in a logical bind. It claimed, somehow, that it<br>
both repudiated the need for ?common carriage? rules and, at the same<br>
time, had the power to prevent discrimination by service providers.<br>
<br>
Comcast, Verizon and other Internet service providers quickly filed<br>
suit. Though the commission fought a valiant fight, defending this<br>
contradiction was always a losing battle. The commission first lost<br>
following a challenge by Comcast in 2010, after which it recast its net<br>
neutrality stance, mandating that service providers not choose winners<br>
and losers among providers of online content or require them to pay fees<br>
as a condition of carriage.<br>
<br>
Verizon then challenged that mandate, and the result was this week?s<br>
court ruling. Unlike the 2010 decision, this time the circuit court left<br>
little room for the commission to revise its rules yet again.<br>
<br>
The court did, however, offer a way forward, if the commission was<br>
willing to take it. The agency must revisit and reverse Mr. Powell?s<br>
2002 decision, relabeling high-speed Internet access a common carriage<br>
service.<br>
<br>
That has always been the obvious solution. But for years the commission<br>
has refused to do so, because its jury-rigged, contradictory stance<br>
worked well enough. Now it has no choice.<br>
<br>
And it must act, soon. Otherwise, we will have an Internet in which,<br>
say,<br>
<br>
Google can pay extra to give Gmail users faster access to their email<br>
than Hotmail users. And Microsoft, which owns Hotmail, will have no<br>
choice but to pay more, too, because each Internet service provider has<br>
a monopoly, or close to one, over local networks.<br>
<br>
In the end, the providers? slicing, dicing and gouging is great for<br>
their shareholders, but not for the country. We?ll end up with a digital<br>
replica of pay TV, rather than the Internet that has prompted such<br>
economic growth and innovation in America.<br>
<br>
Without the right administrative label applied to these services, every<br>
step the commission takes to address these problems will be subject to a<br>
protracted battle over whether the F.C.C. is impermissibly treating the<br>
network providers as ?common carriers.? In the meantime, we will be no<br>
closer to having the reliable, ubiquitous, neutral, world-class<br>
communications infrastructure we need than we are today.<br>
<br>
High-speed Internet access isn?t a luxury; it is basic infrastructure,<br>
like electricity, clean water and a functioning street grid, that is<br>
essential for the free market to function. The F.C.C. can show its<br>
strength by having the guts to change its mind.<br>
<br>
Susan Crawford is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and the<br>
author of ?Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in<br>
the New Gilded Age.?<br>
<br>
A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 17, 2014, on page<br>
A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Back to the Digital<br>
Drawing Board.<br>
<br>
? 2014 The New York Times Company<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------<br>
Richard Lowenberg, Executive Dir.<br>
1st-Mile Institute, 505-603-5200<br>
P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504<br>
<a href="http://www.1st-mile.org" target="_blank">www.1st-mile.org</a> <a href="mailto:rl@1st-mile.org">rl@1st-mile.org</a><br>
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End of 1st-mile-nm Digest, Vol 87, Issue 5<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>