Look out, telecommunications industry – you’re about to be regulated.
Perhaps better phrased as “reregulated” or “further regulated in an industry previously left to regulate itself”, but the sentiment is the same. Phone, cable, and other telcos are not happy with what appears to be Federal regulation of broadband services coming in the near future, as the FCC, FTC, and even Congress itself take an interest in the practices of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Net Neutrality. The next few years may do for broadband in America what the early years of the millennium did for the cell phone market: expand and encourage competition, enforce customer rights and protections, and establish a baseline of acceptable/expected practices.
As the use of and dependence on the Internet has increased, so too have the problems associated: sporadic availability, variable connection speeds, filtered traffic, misleading sales packages, and overall corporate lies about services. The customers that have noticed the shady practices of these companies are a growing, very vocal minority that experiments with bleeding-edge uses of their broadband connection for rich media content delivery, high resolution multiplayer global gaming, remote data archiving, and as a replacement for many applications that have previously been limited to the local machine.
Both the Department of Agriculture and the Commerce Department recently announced the availability of $4 billion in stimulus funds to interested parties for broadband-related projects such as infrastructure growth, marketing, and rural expansion. There is, however, a catch: there are Net Neutrality restrictions. These requirements don’t equate to anything groundbreaking, since they merely reference a duty to follow predetermined regulations and guidelines set by the FCC, but it is a promising first step, if only because the industry fought so hard against it. Even more promising, however, is the newly approved Chairman of the FCC and his comments on the future of broadband in America.
Julius Genachowski was sworn in as Chairman of the FCC on June 29, 2009, and within three days set the tone for how strong he intends the organization to be in the coming years. In a July 1st speech at a Pennsylvania high school, Genachowski notes that the broadband infrastructure of America is sorely lacking and that he wants to have an overall plan to accomplish many goals, not the least of which is to “spur innovation”. On July 2nd, an FCC meeting was held, that included comments to “provide a detailed strategy for maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public” – essentially stating that the public needs not only access to broadband, but the ability to actually utilize the services they pay for, ostensibly by the providers appropriately provisioning their networks.
These initial statements coincided with the launch of Broadband.gov, an FCC-sponsored website tasked with handling details in the public eye on the “FCC National Broadband Plan”. Most interestingly, Genachowski made comments in a July 2nd speech about the need for “universal broadband that’s fast, affordable, and open” while recognizing that other countries have eclipsed our network capabilities. The FCC’s plan is, according to him, going to “complement” those announced by the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce. Futhermore, Michael Copps, FCC Commissioner, made remarks on July 2nd on the need for “value-laden broadband” – combine this with the Chairman’s comments and the newly released outline for the Broadband Plan, and a picture begins to emerge: enforced Net Neutrality and service delivery.
The telecom industry has long fought against the need for internet services regulation because they profit best from overselling networks, underproviding to customers, and filtering out traffic they deem unwanted – in addition to the usual practices of large corporations such as customer service incompetency. The last year has seen discussions, and test implementations, of tiered broadband access, bandwidth caps, and traffic-type restrictions by ISPs, all of which are likely to be deemed unfair practices by even the weakest of Net Neutrality legislation. The FCC has already committed to distributing stimulus money, in the near future, tied to restrictions on network operations – if the next year and a half goes smoothly, and intelligently, companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Time-Warner will have no choice but to provide viable broadband services without unnecessary limitations.
America is potentially on the cusp of a new and glorious era of unfettered broadband, where everyone has access to the global network and customers actually receive they services they pay for. As the FCC is aware, there is only one chance to proceed correctly, and that requires looking to the future of the American people than to the modern profit margins of large corporations. The upcoming regulations of telcos in the United States is necessary to ensure a solid, free digital future, and the new Chairman seems to understand this – the growing vocal minority will be cheering the Federal Government on as this battle of wills begins.
