Competition

It's very interesting what people will slip and say when they are being lionized by a reporter. Salon's recent piece: Telecom Slayers, describes Ben Scott as "one of the SavetheInternet's coordinators," "a leading advocate for net neutrality," and "the closest thing to a field general in the grass roots campaign to ensure net neutrality."

It must have been pretty heady stuff for Ben Scott to hear the liberal icon: "the Salon", compare him to the biblical David that slayed the telecom Goliath!

Kudos to Hahn/Litan Directors of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies for their editorial in The Hill opposing Net Neutrality. 

It is very helpful for two well-respected regulatory thinkers and two well-respected Washington Think Tanks to write a cogent and to-the-point editorial opposing net neutrality.

My favorite sentence is:  "...one truth is clear while both sides are prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, net neutrality enthusiasts are also just plain wrong." Well said. and well worth the read.

I continue to hear net neutrality proponents say "keep the Internet Free" but really want the Internet to be without cost. Freedom and no cost are two very different concepts.

I think one of the biggest reasons the two sides of this debate talk past each other is that broadband companies view this as a marketplace and a business where value is provided through products/services in return for a fee. Provide more value, get more payment.

However, many on the other side just assume that the Internet is a "right, a pillar of democracy and a public good/gift and that everyone should have and not have to pay any more for.

Why this debate has polarized so much is that the world views supporting each side are planets apart...

As a regular weekly reader of Newsweek and "The Technologist" column by Stephen Levy, I was very disappointed to read Mr. Levy's lazy and very one-sided take on Net Neutrality.

In his Newsweek piece of October 9th, Mr Levy referenced a breakfast he had with Susan Crawford and Craig Newmark on Susan Crawford's self-proclaimed "OneWebDay" ("a geeky parallel to Earth Day" Levy described.)

It was obvious that his article was basically a straight regurgitatation of Susan and Craig's datatopian philosophy on Net Neutrality in his weekly column. Having debated the issue recently with Susan at a recent conference and done dueling commentaries with Craig on National Public Radio, it is not hard to discern that Susan/Craig apparently were the sole source of Mr. Levy's knowledge on the subject. It is also pretty obvious that they directed him to Senator Stevens, problably after summarily bashing the Senator's knowlege of the subject.

I know it might be hard for some net neutrality proponents to believe... but somethings might be a lot more more important than equal treatment on the Net.

I don't think I am going out on a limb to say that the overwhelming majority of Americans would say that prioritizing net traffic or providing a premium tier for telehealth in order to save lives, to get underserved areas access to quality health care support and to better the quality of health care in general -- was a lot more important value than net neutrality.

It may sound appealing in the abstract that all traffic should be treated equally, but in the real world Americans value life, health care, and helping people in need more than they value guaranteeing that each bit of traffic takes the same nanoseconds to arrive as any other.

I am pleased to welcome Verizon's new PoliBlog to the blogosphere, they will add another sound and reasoned voice to the debate for free markets and regulatory humility. Verizon is a Netcompetition.org eforum member and funder. 

Like Cisco's great policy blog, I believe Verizon, as the first major communications company to launch a policy blog, will be a helpful and constructive entrant. Tom Tauke is one of the most respected statesmen in the industry and it will be good for him to be more engaged in the blogosphere. His able team also brings a wealth of expertise and opinions.

I am pleased that critics are reading my latest one-pager on why broadband competition will flourish but not surprised that some of the critics are unmoved. One of  my critics at Democraticmedia.org, Jeff Chester, blogs that I have drunk too much cable-telco kool-aid.

Jeff, I have known you for many years and its fair to say that you and I approach the same set of facts from very different perspectives and world views. You have been a big proponent of heavy government restrictions on business in media and communications and a big skeptic on the value of competition policy. I have been a big proponent of the opposite. We have shared common ground in the past and could in the future over opposition to genuine monopoly power that is unaffected by competition; however that is not the broadband world we live in today.  

In reading the FCC's Press release on the state of competitiveness in the wireless industry, it is obvious that wireless is a competitive industry. Prices fell 22% during 2005 alone from 9 cents a minute to 7 cents. The number of subscribers increased from 185m to 213m. In addition, JD Power reported wireless service quality increased.
 
So on what basis are the online giants: Google, Yahoo, eBay, and Microsoft arguing that wireless is not competitive? and should be subject to net neutrality regulation for the first time since 1993? Where is the logic, merit or ethic of that self-serving position?

I wanted to highlight FCC Chairman Martin's statement on the FCC's recent report on the competitiveness of the wireless market. 

The Chairman's summary paragraph is powerful evidence of why the push for net neutrality to be applied to wireless service is so misguided and oblivious to the facts of the marketplace:

"Competition among mobile carriers has lowered the price consumers pay pay for mobile telephone service, stimulating rapid subscriber growth and greater usage of mobile phones. Competition has also encouragd mobile telephone carriers to improve service quality and to begin deploying significantly faster broadband technologies on their networks. The results demonstrate how a competitive marketplace -- rather than economic regulation -- provides the greatest benefits to the American consumer."