Wireless Should Be Treated Differently From Wireline, Panelists Say
With FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler apparently moving toward subjecting mobile broadband to the same net neutrality regulations as wireline 1409190024, CTIA President Meredith Baker and some academics on Wednesday urged the agency to continue to treat wireless differently, as it did in dealing with the 2010 Open Internet order. The discussion was hosted by the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Wireless has technological differences with wireline that require more network management, and it operates with more competition, making unnecessary what Baker called “the ill-advised call for platform parity,” they said. Regulations, particularly those based on Title II, could deter innovation, she said, with Title II leading to years of litigation, which the FCC is likely to lose, she said. “If we lose the mobile moment, we may lose it for a generation,” Baker said. Particularly hurt would be African Americans and Hispanics. who rely on wireless in disproportionate numbers, Baker said, citing a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce study that most Hispanics oppose stronger wireless regulations (http://bit.ly/11ow4CC).
Though Wheeler is expected to allow wireline carriers to engage in "reasonable network management,” panelists worried rules would hinder wireless carriers from being able to deal with the peculiarities of wireless technology or responding to customers’ desires.
The amount of bandwidth available to wireless is “a fraction” of what’s available for fiber systems, said Jeffrey Reed, a Virginia Tech University electrical and computer engineering professor, on the panel. Gaming and voice services are particularly sensitive to latency, he said. As a result, wireless requires more network management and prioritization “to make the customer happy,” he said. Regulation based on “hypothetical situations” of paid prioritization, on “hypothetical” as yet undeveloped applications and technological innovations, “is very dangerous,” he argued. Wireless carriers may want to prioritize some services to market themselves to deliver what customers want, Reed said. One company may want to differentiate itself by prioritizing music, while another might want to prioritize voice service, he said. Sprint, for instance, is offering a data plan that allows access only to social media, said Daniel Lyons, a Boston College associate law professor. Net neutrality regulations could harm carriers’ ability to respond to a “diverse customer base,” he said.
“Paying for improved services is not discriminatory,” said Michael Katz, a University of California-Berkeley economics and business professor. He likened it to prohibiting businesses from buying large ads in newspapers because it would give them an unfair advantage over those who can't afford it. Acknowledging that net neutrality supporters worry that offering fast lanes could increase the incentive to degrade regular service, Katz said the economic impact of net neutrality regulations is ambiguous. A better course, he said, would be to use current anti-trust laws to deal with problems that come up.
Baker praised the release of incentive auction pricing estimates 1410020029, saying they would allow a “business calculus” to participate in the auction.