The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is not taking over the Internet.
The Federal Communications Commission is not taking over the Internet.
The Federal Communications Commission is not taking over the Internet.
In case there is still any confusion about this point, let’s reiterate: The Federal Communications Commission is not taking over the Internet.
There appears to be a great deal of confusion about this simple concept, which could probably be cleared up by understanding some definitions.
Definition one: The Internet. The Internet is that vast collection of content, applications and services hosted on computers that can all interconnect through a commonly understood computer language. The Communications Act, the law governing telecommunications, does not regulate the content, applications and servers.
Definition two: Broadband. Broadband is a high-speed data service commonly used to link customers to the Internet. It is also known as an Internet access service and is usually offered by a telephone or cable company in a monopoly or near-monopoly situation.
Until 2005, broadband fell under provisions of the law regulating most telephone services (Title II, if you’re keeping score), but was “reclassified” by the FCC into a more general area of the law (Title I, if you’re still keeping score), but still under the law. Broadband serves the same purpose as an old voice line did in the dial-up days – to provide the telecommunications connection.
(At the time five years ago, no one in Congress or in industry objected to the reclassification, perhaps because it benefitted the telephone and cable companies. Now that the FCC wants to reverse that mistake and protect consumers, it suddenly becomes a big deal and an infringement of congressional authority as the telecom industry pours millions of dollars every quarter into lobbying. If conservatives and the TEA party are afraid of anything, it should be the special interests buying off Congress to ensure their freedom, but not yours.)
Confusion arises when some commentators, such as Seton Motley in his Sept. 16 article in The Washington Examiner, use the two interchangeably. Broadband and the Internet are not the same thing.
Broadband is the type of service that has been regulated one way or another since the 1930s under a law that has managed to adapt to everything from the times of operators and switchboards to the data networks of today, largely because it is based on some timeless principles of fairness and equity.
Most consumers don’t have much of a choice of broadband providers, if they have one at all. (Wireless doesn’t yet count, because it can’t do all that a robust broadband connection can.)
That’s why it makes no sense to attack the FCC for having a broadband agenda. Not only does the FCC have jurisdiction over broadband, but it’s actually in the communications law that the FCC is required do what it can to make certain that everyone has access to telecommunications and information services.
The provisions of the stimulus law requiring a National Broadband Plan fall squarely within the existing law.
It’s all well and good for watchdogs of whatever political persuasion to be on the lookout for an over-reaching government. We at Public Knowledge did our bit in a landmark court case a few years ago when the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit agreed with us that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exceeded its authority to require, at the behest of big media companies, consumer electronics and computer manufacturers to read and obey a “broadcast flag” signal embedded in new digital television signals.
The discussions going on now are about how much regulation should be applied to make sure that all Americans benefit from the best technology industry has to offer to be connected to a privately run Internet.
Nothing in the current telecommunications debate remotely resembles a “government-run Internet.” That’s simply an uninformed paranoid fantasy.
Art Brodsky is communications director of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C. public interest organization.
