While it was always hard to envision the “information superhighway” having on-ramps from every driveway, that is in fact today’s reality. The path to the world is right at your door. Universal broadband is the foundation of an information renaissance that is driving everything from new commerce opportunities to diverse new employment and entertainment options.
While it was always hard to envision the “information superhighway” having on-ramps from every driveway, that is in fact today’s reality. The path to the world is right at your door. Universal broadband is the foundation of an information renaissance that is driving everything from new commerce opportunities to diverse new employment and entertainment options.
Yet this very explosion of demand and supply has led to a policy swamp full of nasty alligators, everything from access control to the digital divide, economic bottlenecks, content control and preferential treatment.
Net neutrality: Needless yoke or new opportunity?
It is a regulatory nightmare and you can expect it to result in a proverbial “knife fight in a phone booth”. The stakes are too high for the huge players to ignore and it’s not going away.
The solution? Reframe the problem. To use the colloquial business maxim: “When you’re up to your [anatomy part] in alligators, the first order of business is to drain the swamp.”
In truth, this policy swamp is an old problem that can be drained with a classic solution — common carriage principles. At choke points of commerce, like a toll bridge, a vendor may have a privileged position of maintaining the choke point, often for a profit, but must allow the common right of access or carry-over (“carriage”). The common carrier must serve all on equal terms without discrimination.
There are literally centuries of precedent for common carriage. Think about toll roads, ferry boats, railroads, telegraph, telephone — all historic, feasible precedents. The carrier is granted franchise in exchange for nondiscrimination (neutrality) in carrying traffic. Indeed, it doesn’t make sense to have 15 bridges across one choke point, so it may be there are only one or two paths.
Common carriage represents the cooperation of provider, social structure and market to serve the common good. Usually there are protections for the provider’s revenue and management, together with safeguards for customer costs and service levels. Note that you can still have first class, business class and coach class carriage, but on a nondiscriminatory basis. And common carriage is well-regulated to avoid abuse.
Real clear policy
United States communication law overtly encourages technical innovation for the public:
SEC. 7. [47 U.S.C. 157] NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SERVICES.
(a) It shall be the policy of the United States to encourage the provision of new technologies and services to the public.
And United States law already requires real network neutrality (for entities defined as common carriers):
SEC. 202. [47 U.S.C. 202] DISCRIMINATION AND PREFERENCES.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device, or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, or locality, or to subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.
The problem is that the previous administration’s Federal Communication Commission, following confused, contradictory judicial decisions, refused to apply common carriage principles to the clear understanding that broadband access to a single home or business is a choke point. Courts are poor referees for communication networks. And legislators have been reluctant to step forward, even though the principles are pure common sense.
The solution is to craft 21st-century common carriage legislation to supersede murky legal decisions and piecemeal regulatory compromises. Let the FCC follow the law. Let the Congress clarify the law with statutory amendments that define broadband as common carriage for our era.
Common carriage principles allow benefits for all these players:
• For end-users, client businesses and customers — information access, content freedom, reasonable cost/performance ratios.
• For carriers, service providers — reasonable, predictable network management parameters, potential for tiered service revenues (not “unjust or unreasonable”), level competitive playing-field.
• For regulators, governments — rational, feasible, tested basis for policy and regulation, equality of treatment for users and providers, framework for handling innovation and especially future growth.
Broadband growth is the engine of common good, for our 21st-century development and prosperity in this new information renaissance. Therefore, let us strongly encourage broadband demand and increased supply.
Broadband demand and traffic growth must inevitably lead to conflicts in “public convenience, interest, or necessity,” the Federal Communication Commission’s mandate. Therefore, stop the knife fights and use common sense in broadband policy for solutions based on the common good.
All players will benefit, as we’ve seen. Broadband architecture problems lend themselves to common carriage solutions, so let’s work cooperatively to craft 21st-century common carriage legislation and applications. The old principles become new, and we prosper together.
Gillette is professor of information and communication sciences at Ball State University and a senior research fellow at the Digital Policy Institute. He has written extensively on ICT management, and worked in academic, industry and public policy organizations.
This story, “Draining the net neutrality swamp,” was originally published at NetworkWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in LANs and WANs at Network World.
