FCC to Kill the Internet … Not.

“Pub­lic” is a scary word these days. So when the FCC announces plans to reg­u­late inter­net access as a “pub­lic util­ity,” peo­ple who fear the gov­ern­ment tend to freak out. I’m sure they think the government’s heavy hand will “kill the inter­net”, just like it has killed phone ser­vice and pub­lic high­ways, not to men­tion electricity.

The key is iden­ti­fy­ing the aspects of inter­net ser­vice that actu­ally are pub­lic goods, namely, accessibility. Broadband ser­vice is an expen­sive fixed cost for inter­net ser­vice providers (ISPs) like Cox, and so nat­u­rally peo­ple in remote areas are going to get left out. Hence it is use­ful for the gov­ern­ment to step in and help pro­vide access to those people.

On the flip­side of the ser­vice, the exclu­sive con­trol over ser­vice that ISPs are able to estab­lish over demo­graphic or regional areas gives them a monop­oly power over con­tent providers. The FCC should inter­vene in order to main­tain fair­ness among con­tent cre­ators — Net Neu­tral­ity — in order to pro­tect the busi­nesses that rely on the web.

There’s no hint of China-​​like web cen­sor­ship, nor of command-​​and-​​control pric­ing. The FCC, as is its job, is sim­ply act­ing to solve the sev­eral mar­ket fail­ures that ham­per the inter­net on a daily basis. And rightly so.

(Photo: S Baker)

21 June 2010 – 8:53 pm | By Benjamin Daniels | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (182)