Why the FCC can’t protect Internet Users

A response to a letter to the editor by Michael J Copps
In today’s Washington Post Michael J Copps, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, lays out his argument about why the FCC does not but should have jurisdiction with “protecting” the internet.
Below is my respectful response:

Mr. Copps,

In your letter in the post this morning your state, “Now is the time to put broadband back under Title II, where it belongs -- and under which many smaller companies continue to offer Internet access to the public.”  You further state that the Verizon-Google plan that the Post endorses, “creates a  two-tiered Internet at the expense of the open Internet we now have…”

The internet, as it exists right now, already has in place a number of offerings that provide advantage to some providers that others may find it difficult to replicate.  I will only use one example.  Google (and others such as Hulu, Netflix, etc.) have begun to deploy massive replicator servers that they are placing throughout the internet in order to provide their content at a closer physical location to the user. This creates an advantage for them as it means that users have fewer routers to flow through in order to deliver their content to the end user. 

To many, this is a good thing because it means that the the user experience delivered by those content providers who can afford to replicate their server content on a massive scale will have a better user experience.  This means that the little guy you are trying to protect, will have a tougher time competing against those who can afford this type of replication.  This has nothing to do with the way that traffic gets delivered, it simply takes advantage of the laws of physics and the fact that the fewer routers a stream of data must flow through to be delivered to the user, the more likely it will be delivered in a manner that is acceptable to the end user.

Google (and others) are doing this because they can afford it.  However, smaller content providers may be squeezed out in the process because if they can not afford the same level of replication, their content will have to travel a much longer route and “bang up” against a higher number of routers, any which of them could be a potential “choke” point.  What is fair about that?

What if an internet service provider were to offer a service that would allow a content provider to affordably deliver their traffic with a higher priority?  This would provide smaller content providers with another means of competing with the big content providers without having to purchase server space all over geographically. 

Your present position on so called net neutrality would deny smaller content providers with that option.  They would be forced to compete with the only weapon presently available, content replication.

Here is my point.  The present system is already unfair and tilted to the existing content providers in a way that has nothing to do with so called net neutrality. Traffic such as video, on the internet is growing at a geometric pace.  This traffic is very sensitive to delays and packet loss.  Your proposed policy provides only one way to manage this dilemma which the large content providers are already exploiting.  Denying internet service providers with a different means of managing the traffic may jeopardize the very thing you are trying to protect.  Because providing smaller content providers a way to expedite their traffic across the internet could be a less expensive and more powerful way of leveling the playing field with the large content providers.

Please reconsider your position.  As it stands right now, your present stand, protects the content providers already in place and denies smaller, less well financed providers, with a more cost effective mechanism with which they might complete.

Let Freedom Ring

Is it time to Completely Deregulate the Local Phone Service?

Headlines from the past year…

• “Cutting the cord: households dropping land lines for cell phones” Entrepreneuer
• “As Profit Falls 21%, Verizon Plans to Slash 8,000 Jobs” New York Times
• “All of Verizon’s job cuts, which will hit employees and contractors, will be made in its landline unit, the part of Verizon’s business that offers traditional communications services over copper or fiber cables to businesses and home users. Verizon lost nearly two million home phone customers in the last year, leaving it with 17.2 million residential voice customers.”
• “Are phone land lines fading?” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• “Colleges' Land Lines Nearing Silent End:Cells Force Review Of Dorm Options” Washington Post
• “Exodus from Landlines to Cell Phones Continues” PC Magazine
• “Lamenting the Loss of Land Lines” Wawatosa Now

Almost all of us take for granted much of the services and features that are being incorporated into mobile phone devices at a pace that is dizzying.  Whether you are a iPhone fanatic or Droid disciple, you appreciate the dizzying introduction of apps and other services to your hand held device.  We take for granted features like call forwarding and voice mail as “of course” services.

Have you ever wondered why more is not done with a mainstay of the twentieth century the home phone?  Why is it, for example that our mobile phones become increasingly powerful and sophisticated but at the same time the traditional phone is little different than it was 25 years ago?

This was brought home to me in a personal way recently when I tried to add something as simple as call forwarding to my Verizon home phone.  Currently I subscribe to a Verizon FIOS triple play with phone, internet, and tv in the bundle.  When I inquired about adding call forwarding to my service, I was told, that will be $5.99 extra per month.  $5.99 extra???????  Isn’t there a bundle that offers that I politely inquired.  No was the response.  This is not part of the “package”.  This got me thinking, why in heavens name doesn’t Verizon offer this as a package?

Welcome to the world of regulation.

Let’s compare and contrast what a service provider must do to turn on a feature like “call forwarding” on a mobile device and a traditional land phone.

Traditional Land Line
Because land phones are regulated at both the federal and more completely at the state level, they must prepare and deliver to regulatory boards filings that describe services offered and the list prices that will be charged.  If they want to reduce the price, they must file paperwork.  If they want to offer a discount, they must set forth the specific circumstances in which those discounts would apply.  So a phone company must:

• prepare documents (not a trivial task),
• file them with several different state regulators,
• get approval from each of them

before making any changes to an offer.  All of this must be done within the existing (and outdated) definition of what the phone service is.  That definition makes any significant change to what is offered, including handsets and how the service is delivered, costly and difficult.  Even adding something as simple as “call-forwarding” is something of a sisyphus task.

Mobile Line
Compare that with what must be done to introduce call forwarding in the mobile world.

• The company builds call forwarding into the network
• Turns on the capability in the devices
• Announces it to its customers.

Now you tell me, if you were a phone company.  Where would you invest your resources and concentrate your innovation?  The ultra-regulated world of traditional phone services, where it takes an act of the gods to offer something as simple as call forwarding or mobility where competition drives innovation and services are deployed with minimal regulatory regard?

Our legislators are going regulation crazy!  You know, train wrecks may be fascinating to watch, but ultimately destructive and hurt a bunch of people. If we don’t change, a train wreck is where we are headed.  We must slow this train down before it goes off the rails or we may end up like Harrison Ford in “the Fugitive” running for our lives to avoid a runaway locomotive.

Not only should we not regulate the internet, we should tear down the regulations that hold the traditional land line phones stuck in the twentieth century while the rest of the world zips by.

Let Freedom Ring

An Open Letter to the Chairman Genachoski of the FCC

Honorable Chairman Genachoski,

I must say that your recent statement regarding net neutrality is disappointing to me. I understand the need to make our Internet open and accessable to all who seek it, however your statement recently quoted as "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles." may not be as consumer friendly as you would suppose.

First, a disclaimer here, I have worked in data networking for over 15 years, so I have a certain perspective and knowledge about the situation. When the internet began, much of what was transferred was static and text. One of the beauties of the data transfer is the ability to break a computer file into many parts and transmit them in pieces to be reassembled at the destination. When a photo, email, or document is transmitted, it matters little in what order the items arrive or even if a portion is missing since the receiving computer can wait patiently for all the pieces to arrive before re-assembling it.

As long as it is a traditional file, no problem. In human terms, it will happen in a perfectly reasonable amount of time. Things get trickier with higher value applications. For example, in order for real time applications such as a voice call or a video call (especialy high definition/high quality ones) it matters greatly that the file "packets" be delivered, in order, without delay and without any pieces missing. Otherwise, the transmission becomes gibberish and leads to a poor user experience. Fortunately, there are technologies avaialable that can help distinguish a video transmission from say an email transmission and this could lead to a better overall consumer experience.

However, in order for the technology to be workable, it requires that the network distinguish between types of data flowing across it and give priority to the data that needs it. Therefore, in order for providers to deliver high quality, high value applications, they must distinguish and prioritze the data. Unfortunately, Net Neutrality would take away this option.

By demanding so called "net-neutrality" you are condemning users to an internet experience not unlike the Washington DC beltway during rush hour. Yes, people will get to their destination, but not in a way that is very satisfactory. I say, you should allow for the creation of alternative networks that people can choose to obtain that would allow for better management of the data. Yes this would mean that some data would be "delayed" but not typically in a way that is disatisfaying nor would it mean that it would be permanantly blocked. This management of the data flow would lead to a better overall consumer experience by making those who place excessive demands on the network pay for that demand and allow those who do not need high demand applications not have to pay for it. Finally, if a provider, cay Comcast abuses their responsibility to deliver the internet in a way that is balanced, then a user can choose to move their service to a provider that is more fair, for example Verizon or T-mobile. (By the way, I am not making an accusation about either of these companies, just saying that people have choices.)

In summary, net neutrality, on the surface appears to make everything fair. However, by legislating fairness, we will likely endup with an equally bad experience (like the DC Belway at rush hour). Please do not force us to all have a poor experience because a few place high demands on the network.

Respectfully,

-- James W Snowden