As the Internet continues to boom, a new Federal Communications Commission study says, the best thing regulators can do is stay out of the way. The question is whether anyone in the agency who can make policy is listening.
"Digital Tornado: The Internet and Telecommunications Policy" largely dispels some fears that the Feds are planning to swoop in and start writing rules for cyberspace. Although the paper officially represents only the opinion of its author, Kevin Werbach, the agency's counsel for new technology, it is among the first documents that elaborates the agency's unofficial hands-off view of Net regulation.
Some observers point out that though they like the thinking reflected in the report, it comes from a branch of the FCC that is frequently ignored. It's also unclear, they say, whether anyone with any clout will seize on the paper's ideas and carry them out.
"There are some great ideas about hands-off Internet policies there, but it's unclear whether there's anyone at the FCC who will do anything about implementing them," says Daniel Weitzner, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
"First off, (FCC chairman) Reed Hundt is probably on his way out, and it's unclear who will replace him. Beyond that, there are other political shake-ups going on, and the commission's makeup could change substantially."
Weitzner said that Chris McLean, the Senate staffer who penned the original Communications Decency Act for former Senator James Exon (D-Nebraska), is now angling for a Democratic seat as an FCC commissioner. "If he comes on board, there's no telling what weight this recommendation will carry," Weitzner says. "Papers like this are overlooked all the time."
Werbach's paper recommends that FCC policies ensure that the Internet "provides both a space for innovative new services, as well as potential competition for existing communications technologies" and that the FCC prod companies to develop new Internet technologies "that transcend the capabilities of the existing network." The FCC "should not attempt to pick winners," the paper continues, "but should allow the marketplace to decide whether specific technologies become successful"
Werbach concludes that access to Internet-based services should become more prevalent, but "the mechanisms used to achieve this goal should be consistent with the FCC's broader policies of competition and deregulation."
The paper does raise some concerns about legal, economic, and public-policy ambiguities that must be resolved. But it tempers those questions with an underlying premise that regulators should "avoid unnecessary regulation, and question the applicability of traditional rules." The paper also points out that new Internet services that resemble regulated areas like telephony and broadcasting may force the FCC "to resolve some of these issues."
The paper stops short of calling for any new regulation of ISPs or other Internet services. Instead, it says that "the FCC should strive to give companies market-efficient incentives to build high-capacity, high-performance networks that are optimized for data transport ... to resolve difficulties such as congestion and limited bandwidth."
The paper suggests that, even as Pacific Telesis comes forward with a request to recoup US$500 million it says it will spend in the next decade for providing Net access, the agency will continue to cast a critical eye on telco attempts to levy special charges on ISPs. Werbach noted that a telco industry group found that member companies have not been significantly overburdened by providing Net access and have benefited from "substantial additional revenues as a result of Internet usage." But Werbach said he wasn't suggesting "that some form of usage charges for ISPs will necessarily always be the wrong answer."
Still, the overall theme of the paper is that only by encouraging competition - and not necessarily by regulating it - will the Internet's growth and health continue.
"In the end, successfully opening the communications sector to competition will likely be the greatest contribution that government can make to the development of the Internet," the paper concludes.
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