The FCC is stuck in the past when regulating the Internet

The FCC is stuck in the past when regulating the Internet
For a robust, open Internet, don’t saddle it with industrial era regulation, writes guest columnist Michael K. Powell.
By Michael K. Powell
Nov 9 2014
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FOR most of 2014, the Federal Communications Commission has been debating rules to protect the open Internet. The key question is whether the agency should adopt streamlined, modern rules based on the FCC’s general power to promote the broadband Internet market or to reclassify the Internet under archaic public utility rules called Title II.

Lately, however, an even more convoluted idea has emerged: a hybrid approach that would dramatically expand regulation of the back end connections between so-called edge companies (apps, content and services) and Internet service providers (ISPs) under the utility approach, while using the lighter-touch general authority for the rest of the network.

While much remains unknown about this proposal, what we have heard so far raises serious questions about the depth and reach of government into the Internet. 

The recent election can be read many ways, but the public’s repudiation of government micromanagement of our lives and the economy rang clear. It should give us pause when the chairman of the FCC describes his hybrid proposal as a double-barrel approach. Government shotguns pointed at vibrant industries and markets will kill, not nurture, the Internet.

Preserving an open Internet is about giving consumers the freedom to do what they want on the web and creating conditions for greater speeds and lower prices. The net neutrality debate, however, is a referendum on how big a role the government should play in regulating the Internet. Like the “Saturday Night Live” characters Hans and Franz, some net-neutrality advocates want to pump the FCC up with the regulatory steroids of Title II.

Title II really amounts to giving the federal government the power to regulate rates — and state governments the power to impose new taxes on Internet access — and trample over private contracts freely negotiated in a competitive market. 

Government officials privately concede there is no real evidence of a problem that needs fixing. ISPs have not blocked content or stuck up edge providers for payment to deliver their bits faster than others and they have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no economic incentive to do so. 

The problem being addressed, sadly, is more political than substantive. The FCC is considering the assertion of broad control of the most vibrant technology in world history largely to mollify the ill-formed, breathless fears of political constituencies. The FCC was created, in part, to make sober, well-balanced decisions insulated from the stormy howling winds of noisy crowds that may not fully appreciate the risks of what they advocate. 

Title II is dangerous for the Internet in all its forms. It is a rusty sledgehammer that has been sitting in the garage for 20 years. If the government reaches for it and wields it over the dynamic, vibrant, ever-changing Internet that has revolutionized our lives, the unintended consequences would be severe. Consider just a few well-documented risks from this Depression-era regulation:

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