This Internet thing has gotten just too good for its own good. This was made ever more clear through two December events.
The FCC held a one-day forum in Washington, D.C., at which commissioners solicited opinions from a variety of people on what, if anything, the FCC should do to regulate VoIP.
Separately, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) hosted the first phase of The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva. The meeting was held to discuss the effect of the new information-based society on different parts of the world and what new governance mechanisms, if any, are needed for the Internet.
Lots of opinions were expressed at each meeting, but there was a clear undercurrent present at both. The traditional telecom folks, both providers and regulators, seem to feel that there is no bad regulation or, at the very least, that living without regulations would be bad.
A European telecom regulator told me a few years ago: “This voice over Internet thing is not very good. It’s getting better and as soon as it gets good enough we will regulate it to be sure that it stays good.” I replied that such an attitude might be a fine reason to never get VoIP quite good enough to trigger such regulations. The regulator professed not to understand what I meant.
Underlying the regulator’s comment to me and underlying many of the discussions at the ITU and the FCC is the assumption that the phone service VoIP provides will be just like traditional phone service. Too many traditional telecom folks seem to want to just use all the potential and flexibility of the Internet to replicate existing services. That’s like forcing new wine to be presented in old bottles, to reapply an overused phrase.
Applying regulations or governance models developed for technology infrastructures that are quickly becoming obsolete is a reasonably reliable way to minimize the ability to make use of the innovation potential present in the Internet. But that is just what a lot of people seem to want to do. I guess they fear the uncertainty inherent in times of innovation.
The FCC has formed an Internet Policy Working Group to assist it in thinking about policy aspects of Internet-based telecom services, and WSIS asked that a U.N. task force be created to explore Internet governance issues. The evolution of the Internet as an engine for the future might be largely determined by the groups’ work.
This might seem to be an overly pessimistic view coming from someone who has been as strong a believer in the ability of the Internet to get around the roadblocks erected by traditional telecom for so long. The difference is that the Internet is now well past the threshold where we can “just do it” and has moved into an era where we have to pay attention to the people who can put you in jail if you ignore them.
Disclaimer: Some people think that you should sometimes pay attention to Harvard even if it can not put you in jail on its own, but I do not know the university position on this topic.
