Outside the Beltway, but Many of Same Arguments in Net Neutrality Debate

The Internet has thrived during a period when it was “unfettered from state or federal regulation,” said Texas Public Utility Commission Chairwoman Donna Nelson, at Tuesday's webcast forum at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. “In Texas, we believe customers, not government, should pick the winners and losers,” she said, saying Title II “was built in a different time for different types of services.”

Title II would mean “we’d go back to 1934. It’s a very different environment and not the competitive environment we have today,” said Chelsea McCullough, executive director of Texans for Economic Progress, which advocates for technology and infrastructure investment. Even without Title II regulations, there have been no fast or slow lanes, she said. “The Internet is working,” McCullough said.

But Stewart Youngblood of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center said an entrepreneur concerned about being in a slow lane may be discouraged from going forward with the project because of the uncertainty. Despite arguments broadband deployment has flourished during a period of light regulation, many customers have few choices among ISPs, said Edward Henigin, chief technology officer of Data Foundry, an Austin, Texas-based retail and wholesale data center that provides Internet bandwidth and managed services. Those customers who have a choice of two ISPs have only one between “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Henigin said.

“We have terrible Internet access,” Henigin said. Internet prices are going up when technology should be driving costs down. “Customer service is awful,” he said, drawing applause. Without competition at the last mile, he said, incumbents have the ability to push content providers into a slow lane unless they pay for better services. Data Foundry’s sister company, Giganews, faced a situation in which an ISP did not upgrade service, caused congestion and gave the company only the option of buying direct service to customers by paying for it. Though Robert Hunt, the Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative’s vice president-regulatory affairs and business operations, and Alamo Broadband President Joe Portman said their companies would not degrade the content their customers want, Henigin argued the incentive to do so would remain if an ISP lacks competition. “Why not take advantage of the power you have?” Henigin asked Hunt and Portman. “Where are your customers going to go?”

Pai organized the forum after the FCC’s series of net neutrality panel workshops drew criticism from public interest groups and some members of Congress for being held at the commission’s headquarters. It’s important, Pai said at the forum, for the FCC “to get outside of the Beltway and directly engage Americans who will be impacted by our rules, not just Washington insiders.” He expressed disappointment other commissioners did not attend. “On this issue and other critical issues, the FCC shouldn’t be hiding in our nation’s capital,” Pai said. He read a statement from Republican Mike O’Rielly saying he had a prior commitment to attend the International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference in Korea. Other commissioners and Chairman Tom Wheeler did not comment.

Pai largely did not discuss his own stance during the forum, but said the commission should preserve four principles for Internet freedom set out in 2004 under then-Chairman Michael Powell: to ensure access lawful content, the freedom to use applications, the freedom to attach personal devices to the network, and the freedom to obtain service plan information.

Barriers to broadband deployment and investment should be removed, Pai said. ”We can’t rest on our laurels. There must continue to be a business case for investing the tens of billions of dollars necessary to bring broadband access to more Americans, to increase broadband speeds, and to give consumers more choices. In other words, we need to focus on net capacity, not just net neutrality,” he said. Internet regulations should be transparent, Pai said, saying the commission should make any changes to rules in public. “Too often, FCC regulations are the product of last-minute, backroom deals. That shouldn’t happen here. And we shouldn’t let well-paid lobbyists have inside information about what the commission will be voting on while keeping the American people in the dark,” Pai said.

Unlike the commission workshops at FCC headquarters, Tuesday's event allowed members of the public to speak, said Tim Karr, a spokesman for Free Press, one of the groups that had urged the commission to hold hearings outside Washington. Some in the audience expressed frustration about the lack of choices for ISPs. The “strongest public cheers and comments were for Title II,” said Free Press Field Director Mary Alice Crim in a statement after the hearing.

“No service provider has ever engaged in fast lanes or slow downs," Hunt said. And, responding to the complaints at the hearing about a lack of choice among ISPs, Guadalupe Valley's Hunt said the solution is to encourage more investment, and Title II would discourage it. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," Alamo Broadband's Portman said, also citing broadband deployment over the past 20 years. Title II “is a terrible idea, born of good intentions,” he said, and “small companies like mine” couldn’t afford the additional regulatory requirements Title II would bring.