Microsoft, Comcast, Free Press Among Those Adding Comments to Neutrality Debate
The American Cable Association and NTCA want net neutrality rules to flow both ways, with content providers prohibited from blocking Internet providers from carrying their content as well as the reverse. The ACA backed two-way regulation in the past, and it said in its comments that imposing “one-sided regulation” would be a “mistake.” If the commission approves net neutrality rules, “the exclusion of Internet edge providers from them, will undermine the rules’ goals and effectiveness, and in turn, cause distortions in the multi-sided Internet marketplace,” ACA said in its comments (http://bit.ly/Wnu1Nc). Using Title II “would be excessively costly, disruptive and unnecessary,” ACA said.
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NTCA urged reciprocal no-blocking agreements between providers and edge companies under Section 706, in its comments (http://bit.ly/1oS1yp5), but did advocate using Title II to prohibit discrimination for interconnections, but not for retail connections. It would still allow connection agreements between companies, but the FCC would be empowered with Title II authority as a “backstop” if problems arise, NTCA Senior Vice President of Policy Michael Romano told us.
Several other players weighed in on the last day of the comments period. The FCC had received 1.056 million comments by noon Friday, an agency spokesman said. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement Friday afternoon that “we are grateful so many Americans have answered our call. Our work is just beginning as we review the more than one million comments we have received. There are currently no rules on the books to protect an Open Internet and prevent ISPs from blocking or degrading the public’s access to content. There is no question the Internet must remain open as a platform for innovation, economic growth and free expression. Today’s deadline is a checkpoint, not the finish line for public comment."
The Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council’s stance opposing Title II regulations puts the chances of it being adopted at “well below” 50 percent, said George Reed-Dellinger of Washington Analysis. “This is the first time the big entrenched tech firms have publicly come out against Title II.
"Notably, when Net Neutrality was last debated at the Commission in 2009, many of the big tech players came out strongly in favor of reclassification of broadband as a utility,” Reed-Dellinger wrote in a message to investors on Friday. “Undoubtedly, there will be days ahead with negative headlines related to reclassification due to media focus on the grass roots net movement. Nevertheless, without the big tech names on board, in our opinion, reclassification just got a whole lot harder to even attempt.”
The Internet Association, which represents many of the same members as ITI called for nondiscrimination, no-blocking and robust transparency requirements (http://bit.ly/1qYaLAF). The association is concerned only about the end result and is not taking a side in the Section 706/Title II debate, CEO Michael Beckerman told us. By calling for “light touch regulations,” the association was making the point that the rules do not need to be burdensome for IP companies, he said.
The rules and legal standard in the NPRM “are not enough” to prohibit broadband providers from blocking and discriminating, Free Press said in its comments (http://bit.ly/1tf6Fne). Responding to opponents’ characterization that using Title II would be a return to Ma Bell-era regulations, the group said “it does not require rate regulation, nor does it require network owners to offer wholesale access. It is not a burdensome regulatory framework in any respect.” The highest level of investment for the telecom industry came in the years after the 1996 Telecommunications Act, when most of the companies were “subjected to the full force of the law. Average annual investment by telecom carriers was 55 percent higher under the period of Title II’s application than it has been in the years since the FCC removed broadband from Title II,” Free Press said.
The commission should use Section 706 to reaffirm the importance of its transparency framework, reinstate a no-blocking rule with a revised legal rationale, and establish a “commercial reasonableness” standard to govern direct commercial relationships between broadband providers and edge providers relating to the transmission of Internet traffic over broadband Internet access service, said Comcast (http://bit.ly/1nUphZk). Comcast opposes the use of Title II, calling it “unnecessary,” and unwise in that it would stifle capital investment and dynamic innovation at the very time the Commission is seeking to encourage the deployment of higher speed services.” Title II would also “present needless risk as a legal matter, resulting in years of protracted litigation and uncertainty,” Comcast said.
At a minimum, the commission should adopt “a presumption against preferential transmission arrangements because they distort the market for edge services in ways that frustrate innovation, competition, and economic growth,” Microsoft said in its comments (http://bit.ly/1rxq5DL). Preferential arrangements “(as opposed to reasonable network management)” distort the marketplace and improperly influence subscribers’ decisions to access certain edge services, Microsoft said. The company’s own research found that “a delay in the load time for search result pages as small as 100 milliseconds can result in a 0.6 percent loss of annual revenue. In a single year, that difference of a mere tenth of a second can amount to billions of dollars.” A rule that “prohibits blocking (subject to reasonable network management) is critical, as opposed to some vaguely conceived ‘minimum level of access’ that would afford some edge providers the ability to access ‘fast lanes’ above that minimum level of access,” the company said.
The agency should approve “bright line” rules that would ban access fees, including for enhanced or preferred treatment and application-specific discrimination, a group including officials of Etsy, Foursquare and Tumblr told Chairman Tom Wheeler, FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and Special Counsel for External Affairs Gigi Sohn in a meeting July 15, according to an ex parte posted Friday. They urged Wheeler to reclassify broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service under Title II, the filing said. The group included Jordan Breslow and Chad Dickerson of Etsy, Brian Chase of Foursquare, Scott Heiferman and David Pashman of Meetup, David Karp and Ari Shahdadi of Tumblr, Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter and Jamie Wilkinson of VHX.