Google and Verizon have posted their policy suggestions for the next generation of high-speed Internet access law.
I don’t blame them for trying. These are profit-making companies, not regulators and not advocacy groups. I’m sure Google, in particular, is tired of the multi-year slog that has gone into the net neutrality debate – and tired of being made the poster-child for the issue as other major online companies have steadily backed away.
The key takeaway from today’s announcement is that it underscores the urgency of FCC action to ensure that it has jurisdiction to speak to American companies about high-speed Internet access. As someone told me today – snappy line – the agency is being disintermediated.
Funny, but not good for the American economy. These two giants have found a policy vacuum and they have, understandably, filled it. A private deal – even a private deal aimed at suggesting legislation – is not the same thing as acting in the public interest. That’s the FCC’s charge.
The key tradeoff being made here is between the treatment of wireless services, on the one hand, and the treatment of nondiscrimination, on the other. Google gave on wireless, and so there’s no policy suggestion for wireless net neutrality that has been provided by the companies. That’s a huge hole, given the growing popularity of wireless services and the recent suggestion by the Commission that we may not have a competitive wireless marketplace. Verizon gave on nondiscrimination, and so there is a suggestion that paid prioritization of services over the Internet would be presumed unlawful (something that AT&T would not have agreed to).
Both companies left “managed services” (or “other services”) off the table for regulation. That’s a giant, enormous, science-fiction-quality loophole. It means that Verizon could decide what bits reach consumers more quickly; it means they’ll be able to favor particular uses of Internet access for exclusive deals. It’s the exception that swallows the rule, as lawyers like to say. It’s prioritization using another label. There’s a save in there that suggests that the “other service” has to be distinct in scope and purpose from Internet access (something cable would not have agreed to), but that’s a long way from an enforceable standard.
What’s needed now is leadership. Here’s a quote sent to me yesterday – from LBJ to regulators: “Let the venal and the self-seeking and the tawdry and the tainted fear to enter your building.” You need backbone to regulate a giant industry, and this one is too important to our economic, social, and cultural future to ignore.
As you said, this agreement fills a vacuum that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
My biggest problem with this is that it’s Google+Verizon agreeing on ANYTHING to do with policy. Look what happened here: Verizon practically got Google to say that wireless should not be regulated, even though Google doesn’t address wireless. We can only suppose Google wishes for consumer choice on wireless, but a quick read of this agreement would lead most to believe otherwise!
These “agreements” look like cooperation, but they don’t help and didn’t help. Great intentions we hope. Unfortunate outcomes, however.
Instead of keeping this uncertainty alive, the FCC should act now to protect Americans’ rights to access an open Internet.
very well put!
this begets a new era in consumer services (“managed” or not) that will be $-driven, not necessarily bad for large companies. not necessarily good for consumer $$s.
I think the Verizon concession on non-discrimination should be embraced. Just hold their feet to the fire on the FCC process they outline in the paper.
The managed services businesses for the ISPs have been around since the beginning of broadband without a problem. In fact, managed services from Cable have given the Bells the only real competition in residential landlines we’ve ever seen. What public interest is there in breaking apart those businesses? Just create some rule like managed services can not be made available also over the Internet.
As for wireless, that whole realm seems like a nightmare. Ask anybody with an iphone whether they’d trade slower innovation for a more reliable phone.
The nondiscrimination clause is weakened by this piece tucked in at the end: “…in a way that causes harm to users or competition.” Verizon and the others have continuously argued that prioritization causes no harm to users or competition, so it’s hard to see how the Google agreement, with this exception, compels them to change anything about their approach–unless the FCC can argue that prioritization practices are harmful in some way, which it has yet to successfully do.
It also presupposes the existence of another class of services that aren’t “regular internet services”. Does such a thing even have a reason to exist other than as a way to put the services that are subject to regulation in a nice little box that they can then ignore as everybody else’s internet?
Nondiscrimination in everything but wireless and whatever they want to call “other services”? They might as well have released their policy suggestions for how to levy tolls based on the number of hoofs the animal pulling your cart has.
Um, isn’t that exactly what they want? That VZ managed services only be available through VZ pipes so that customers can’t as easily move elsewhere? Now that they don’t have the ability to lock in someone’s phone number, you would just as soon hand them another well-known address and data to go along with it?
It’s past time to renationalize the Internet.
Good news versus bad news regarding the Internet access future hinges on the prognosis for competition. Competition requires end user choice among different suppliers. The proposal offers end users a choice between different offers of the same supplier. The pressures on Verizon to enhance the company’s “public Internet” offer start out relatively modest. The threat an improving public Internet poses to Verizon’s voice revenues represents a large investment disincentive. The proposal provides a means for Verizon and Comcast to “compete” in terms of their proprietary broadband offers and allow the “public Internet” to suffer Cinderlla’s fate.
I can’t help being reminded of Carterphone, and the huge opportunity for ISPs to decide what “approved equipment” is to connect to your internet.
Now, that’s just a scary thought. As we’ve seen recently in the Gulf of Mexico, allowing companies to regulate their own industry is just a horrifically bad idea. It’s a given that they will not be acting in the public interest, they will be acting in the interest of their shareholders. To be fair, they are supposed to act in the interest of their shareholders, but that fact should not be forgotten by the public or the FCC. Let them do their jobs of maximizing profits, and insist that the FCC do its job of protecting the public interest. That way everyone can do what they’re going to do and represent who they’re supposed to represent fairly and honestly instead of trying to lie.
Donald from Down Syndrome Treatments
I’ve seen a number of instances around the web referring the the VZ-G agreement as the Verizon-Google Legislation.. i know they are being sarcastic but I also find it extremely troubling that the vacuum and impasse around this issue means that Verizon and Google decide how we roll going forward. As they should, they have their company’s interests at heart.. but they should not be making effectively legislation for all of us.. they shouldn’t be able to do it for themselves when it should be a decision that makes all of us work one way on the web/wireless. It should be the FCC that decides this for all of us, with our interests at heart.
And then to have them both lie on their respective blogs just before announcing the agreement that they weren’t meeting to do an agreement.. or some such carefully worded denial to get around the NYTimes assertion of meetings and agreements.. I get that I’m being naive here to ask for honestly, accountability and fairness across what should be government standards in the marketplace.