Advocates See Net Neutrality as Sideshow
BURLINGAME, Calif. -- Discussion of net neutrality is unnecessary or even a distraction from much more important broadband policy questions, a range of speakers said Tuesday at an emerging-communications conference. “Net neutrality is a waste of time,” and the debate is confusing legislators, other policymakers and the public, President Susan Estrada of the nonprofit FirstMile.US said at the eComm conference. Instead of that “crazy” issue, everyone “should be discussing how we get pipes” to everyone, she said. Richard Bennett of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation said the main question should be getting fiber to the home throughout the U.S.
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Executive Director Tracy Rosenberg of the Media Alliance supported structural separation of network operations from control over services, which she said the National Broadband Plan “was not strong on.” Bennett dismissed structural separation as “just price controls … and mandated wholesale access,” suitable in a European broadband market dominated by DSL but inapplicable in the U.S. He said the FCC broadband team had essentially “discarded” structural separation proposals as “irrelevant” because the U.S. has cable as well as telco broadband. The problem in this country is that “the citizens don’t want to pay for the higher-speed access” because they're scared of Internet scams or haven’t been convinced of broadband’s benefits, Bennett said. “There’s a lot more access than there is uptake.” Rosenberg did say that service providers’ imposing “pay to play” charges on content and applications providers would reduce the freedom of expression and economic growth that the Internet has promoted.
Verizon thinks that the FCC’s Internet principles are enough to handle the rare network-discrimination problem, said regulatory executive Paul Brigner. He said the carrier has a “concern” with the National Broadband Plan’s “focus on set-top boxes.” There’s “a lot of innovation in the devices” already, so “it’s premature for the government to come and try to set policy.” Estrada complained that the plan wasn’t ambitious enough, saying a theme is “lets beg for 100 meg.”