FCC Commissioner Says Shouldn’t Choose ‘Regulation Over Collaboration’ of the Internet

Op-ed piece warns of government bureaucrats solving network traffic programs instead of engineers.

With news that the FCC is close to punishing Comcast for throttling BitTorrent it’s worth mentioning that one of the dissenting commissioners, Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal criticizing government intervention in the matter.

So far three votes in favor of punishing Comcast come from Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, and Republican chairman Kevin Martin, ensuring a majority and that the FCC will take action.

Comcast has acknowledged it slowed some traffic, but said it was necessary to prevent P2P traffic from hogging network resources. McDowell agrees and cites bogus figures that claims "At peak times, 5% of Internet consumers are using 90% of the available bandwidth because of the P2P explosion."

"This flood of data has created a tyranny by a minority," he adds. "Slower speeds degrade the quality of the service that consumers have paid for and ultimately diminish America’s competitiveness globally."

However, other research suggests that HTTP traffic consumes 70% of network bandwidth compared to 20% for P2P.

No matter whose research you believe it’s unfair to CUSTOMERS to interfere with Internet connections they pay for to have explicitly advertised speeds.

McDowell laments the impending punishment of Comcast as an attempt by government to intervene in a matter best solved by engineers and not politicians or bureaucrats.

He writes:

If we choose regulation over collaboration, we will be setting a precedent by thrusting politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions. Another concern is that as an institution, the FCC is incapable of deciding any issue in the nanoseconds that make up Internet time. And asking government to make these decisions could mean that every few years the ground rules would change based on election results. The Internet might grind to a halt in such a climate. It would certainly die of clogged arteries if network owners had to seek government permission before serving their customers by managing surges of information flow.

A better model would allow collaborative groups to continue to do what they have done for years. If they can’t reach an agreement, — which has never happened — then government could examine the situation and act accordingly. Sometimes shining sunlight on issues produces amazingly beneficial effects, and the public interest groups that raised the BitTorrent matter should be praised for doing so. Yet before venturing into the unknown, we should remember something President Bill Clinton said in 1997: "Governments should encourage industry self-regulation wherever appropriate and support the efforts of private-sector organizations to . . . facilitate the successful operation of the Internet." What we do, or don’t do, will affect tomorrow’s networks. Let’s stick with what works and encourage collaboration over regulation.

I think the point that he misses though is that an ISP really should be a gateway to the Internet and not a gatekeeper. IF it’s network bandwidth that it’s concerned with then it should charge customers per byte or impose data caps. That’s only fair because they are charging for services rendered. However, if it blocks or throttles your Internet connection with no warning and in effect throttles what your capabilities are then it’s unfair to customers and to the principles of net neutrality.

The Internet has become much more than a place to chat or check the weather like it was in the early days. Now it’s where most of our communications, learning, financial transactions, and more is conducted and it’s absolutely vital that we don’t throttle programs or applications simply because ISPs can’t deliver what they’ve promised and sold t customers at hefty monthly fees.

The FCC decision is likely to be challenged in court, but it’s nice to know that government can do the right thing sometimes.