 Ten years ago, we heard the promise that the U.S. would lead the world in high-speed knowledge transfer with commercial and residential internet access faster and better than anything we could imagine. Today, some countries, notably South Korea and Japan, where consumers pay 10 to 25 times less per megabit than in the U.S., appear to be on the way to realizing this dream in terms of speed, cost, and universality of access. The U.S., where cable and telephone providers control almost 98 percent of the residential and small-business broadband internet market, is lagging significantly behind, with giant corporations trying and sometimes succeeding in holding back the spread of technology to rural and less affluent urban areas in the self-interest of improving already impressive profit margins.
The big telephone and cable companies have been working hard on legislation to stave off competition from other market entrants, such as electric utilities offering broadband over power lines (BPL), nonprofit wireless community networks, and municipalities building their own high-speed low- or no-cost networks. The cable industry scored a big win against competition with the June Supreme Court ruling that they have a right to restrict competitive internet service providers (ISPs) from their cable modem networks -- networks that were largely built as part of protected monopolies using the public right-of-ways. The big telephone companies, regulated differently as common carriers and long required to share their monopoly-built telephone networks, cried foul. The FCC released them, starting in 2006, from the obligation of sharing their telephone-based Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) high-speed internet service with competitive ISPs such as Earthlink in order to create a level playing field with cable.
Furthermore, the official classification of cable modem service and DSL as information services, like Google or Yahoo, instead of telecommunications services provides the foundation for the provision of internet access as a private, limited use toll road versus the open information superhighway that we are accustomed to in the U.S. Cable companies have criticized telephone companies about their plans to roll out their advanced, higher speed networks primarily in wealthier areas. Both cable and telephone companies are on record with their desires to control what users can access or do on their networks, and to provide a higher ?Quality of Service (QoS)? for their own or for preferred content. Many large internet-dependent companies have expressed their concerns, but, thus far, the FCC has issued only a non-enforceable policy statement supporting ?network neutrality,? unfettered access to lawful content and services on the internet.
In early October, some financial companies that use the internet to conduct their businesses experienced a painful loss of communications to critical parts of the internet. The loss of communications occurred because of a price dispute between internet providers who had previously been cooperating to keep information flowing to customers, some of whom had not been notified that the flow would no longer be available.
These facts lend credence to the recent disagreements, fueled by censorship concerns, between the U.S. and numerous countries over who should control the root domain names on the internet ( U.S. controlled heretofore). Other concerns include privacy, adequate network addresses, security, surveillance, competition, and intellectual property. The European Union (EU) has gone so far as to threaten to create a separate internet, thereby increasing concerns about ongoing international cooperation and maintenance of the internet as an open channel of communication around the world.
Broadband regulatory changes are needed in the U.S. Given the importance of the internet, reform legislation should establish a fair playing field and protect the public interest by 1) preventing redlining, the denial of services to a group of subscribers because of income or race; 2) assuring unfettered access to legal content on the internet; 3) protecting the establishment of community and municipal networks; 4) requiring availability of unbundled broadband internet services; and 5) providing wholesale network pricing to competitive ISPs.
In the next issue of The Right-of-Way , we will continue our examination of what?s at stake with the current push for telecommunication reform legislation. Please visit our website at www.indyaccess.org for current information on legislation.
Jean Coughlin is a retired Indianapolis IT worker, and Andrea Price is Board President of Public Access of Indianapolis, Inc.
Additional Resources:
"Are We Really A Nation Online? Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Access to Technology and Their Consequences (pdf),"
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, September 2005
BIG BROADBAND: Public Infrastructure or Private Monopolies
Wayne Caswell, CAZITech Consulting, presents a fact-filled case for public broadband by contrasting the different incentives of incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), cable television companies, municipalities and other stakeholders.
"Supreme Court's Brand X Decision Endangers the Principle of Net Neutrality," "FCC Shares Spoils of Brand X Victory with the Baby Bells," and "Open Access Redux: Legg Mason Casts Wary Eye on the Broadband Future"
Center for Digital Democracy
World?s First Global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ranking
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Digital Access Index
"How Can Indiana Plug Into the Tech Economy?"
Indianapolis Star, November 2, 2005
"Broadband Reality Check" (pdf) and "Community Internet: Broadband as a Public Service" (pdf), and Community Internet action page
Free Press
"Where No Broadband Has Gone Before"
Rural Policy Research Institute
"All Your Broadband Are Belong to Us"
Timothy Karr
"Cato Study Opposes FCC Imposition of Network Neutrality"
Tech Law Journal
"Political Oversight of ICANN"
The Internet Governence Project concept paper
Exploring the Domain Name Space |
