ACA, NCTA Push Back on McDowell’s Net Neutrality Criticism of Them
Cable associations argued that the cable industry isn’t asking for an overreach of regulation by telling the FCC net neutrality rules should include edge providers. In an op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell cautioned cable companies against supporting the idea.
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McDowell argued that forcing the edge providers to stream their online content no matter what would violate the First Amendment and “lay waste to the economics of the Internet.” He was referring to comments by NCTA and Time Warner Cable on the FCC net neutrality NPRM. Cable arguing for such a regulation “only adds momentum to the net-neutrality effort,” he said (http://on.wsj.com/1qlA3YG).
McDowell is no fan of regulation and neither is the American Cable Association and its members, said Matt Polka, ACA president. ACA’s members include smaller providers trying to provide more broadband in their communities, he told us Tuesday: “More regulation probably means less broadband.”
McDowell is mischaracterizing what ACA has said in its comments, Polka said. ACA hasn’t said providers can’t condition access to their online content, “but if they choose to freely make it available over the Internet, they can’t target and discriminate against some subscribers while letting everybody else get it for free,” he said. It should be a violation of net neutrality if a content provider targets the ISP address of a broadband customer and discriminates by preventing that customer from receiving content that’s otherwise freely available over the Internet, he said.
NCTA hasn’t “jumped on the net neutrality bandwagon as has been suggested,” a spokesman said. NCTA and the cable industry have long supported an open Internet, he said. NCTA believes consumers should have “unfettered access to any legal content of their choosing,” he said. The group also continues to support a “reasonable and limited open Internet rule, but strenuously oppose[s] reclassifying the Internet as a public utility” he said. McDowell had no further comment Tuesday, while Time Warner Cable referred a request for comment to NCTA.
A cable attorney said he agrees with McDowell’s point, calling it a warning to cable operators that “trying to drag others into the mess won’t really help you and may wind up hurting you.” It would be worthwhile for cable operators to consider the point, the attorney said. But he’s unsure if anyone will change his or her mind on the basis of the op-ed, the attorney said. “The cable industry has already filed comments and taken its position.”
About 50 ACA members chose not to renew their programming agreement for Viacom’s bundle of programming, said Polka, referring to online content blackouts during disputes with Cable One (CD May 7 p14; July 12/12 p10). During those disputes, Viacom content was blocked online for those ACA members’ customers, “and for other customers of video providers who subscribe to our members’ broadband service,” said Polka. It’s the same kind of discriminatory behavior that the commission under Chairman Tom Wheeler and former chairman Julius Genachowski has sought to prevent ISPs from doing as well, he said: “There’s no difference."
The op-ed says the cable industry thinks the rules are going to be enacted and that the best it can do is ensure that they don’t apply in an uneven way to cable operators as compared with others that transmit data on the Internet, McDowell said: “perhaps commenters underestimated their likelihood of success.” (klane@warren-news.com)