Neutrality Sides Nearer Than They Think, Says Verizon Executive
SAN JOSE, Calif.-- An FCC network-management hearing in Cambridge, Mass.(CD Feb 26 p2), found an encouraging degree of common ground between network operators and application providers opposing both discrimination and heavy-handed regulation, said Link Hoewing, Verizon assistant vice president for Internet and technology issues. “On a lot of these issues there is a lot more common ground than people are willing to admit,” Hoewing said late Monday on a VON conference panel.
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The best regulatory strategy overall is for a policymaker to “set a goal and largely step out of the way,” as occurred with cellular, and use “ex post” remedies, Hoewing said. That way “you don’t end up with an inch of regulations that need to be interpreted,” he said.
But more and more the FCC seems to be trying to force VoIP to fit requirements designed for circuit-switched phone service, said Rick Whitt, Google Washington telecom and media counsel. It would be better to give the industry flexibility to meet social goals, he said. The courts continue to defer to the FCC as an expert body, though the agency has shown it doesn’t “see ahead” on important technology trends, he said.
Pressure for VoIP regulation comes from senators from rural states who fear VoIP technology will disrupt the established telco industry and universal service, costing constituents more, said Larry Irving, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance. Lowell Feldman, CEO of Feature Group IP, said he dared an executive of a large telco to let his company take high-cost customers “off your hands” at no cost to the government. He got no response from the company, he said, declining to identify it except to say that it wasn’t Verizon.
The biggest chance in years to reshape communications policy is less than eight months away, Irving said. The fluid period will run from election day though the next presidential administration’s first hundred days, he said.
Irving called government activism justified when applied in policymaking to promote high use of low-cost service via efficient interconnection. The Clinton administration, which he served as NTIA administrator, had the right idea, Irving said: “First, do no harm,” as in clearing the way for VoIP, but do address market failures, such as by recognizing the need for emergency services and for access by rural residents, the poor, schools and libraries.
The U.S. should “open up a huge amount of bandwidth” on the “802.11 wireless model,” to “take the importance off the physical network” and give entrepreneurs who don’t have $20 billion for spectrum “access to the tools” they need, Feldman said. That’s how the TV white spaces should be used, Irving said. Service alternatives to the Bells and cable companies will arise, but probably not on a national scale, he said.
The demise of open access by service providers to cable and phone networks has pushed conflict up the “stack” to applications, hence the rumpus about network neutrality, Whitt said. When someone bemoaned the end of availability of unbundled DSL, Feldman blamed it on the FCC. Irving called Congress equally responsible.
Europe is far better off for having stuck with unbundling requirements, Feldman said. Hoewing said the tradeoff is that where France gets broadband competition via unbundling, the U.S. gets fiber because it got rid of unbundling requirements. The U.S., whose broadband rankings are decried, ranks near the top in the world for fiber buildout, he said. “We can still compete with Europe,” Irving said. He said the regulatory models in the U.S. and Europe may not suit each other, due to differences in the economic and political systems.
U.S. regulation still reflects the maxim that the old AT&T’s main accomplishment was not creating the phone system but “selling its special interest as a public policy,” said Feldman. The discussion should be focused on whether we should deny a nonprofit resource like Wikipedia the eligibility for subsidies accorded voice service in rural and other places, he said.
Whitt cited as beneficial regulation the FCC’s original Computer Inquiry rules, which he said were largely repealed in the Brand X case. He was replying to a challenge by Brad Templeton, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s chairman, to identify helpful rules. Irving referred to the Lifeline and Link-Up programs. “Some of the rules actually brought telephone service to people who needed it,” he said. Irving also cited the FCC’s Internet freedom principles. He thinks all rules should be reconsidered after a few years of being in effect, he said. That prompted Templeton to ask him to run the FCC. “I don’t think I want to go back into government,” Irving said, adding that he would get the chance if his presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is elected. - Louis Trager