FCC
Washington,
DC
Re: Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
Dear FCC Commissioners,
I am writing this letter with respect to the “Open Internet”
discussion. I am inspired to write on
this issue as for a substantial part of my initial career as an owner of a
company that sold telecommunications services, I was constantly affected
directly or indirectly by the telecommunications industry.
First of all I would like to make perfectly clear to you
commissioners that there exist no real issue with respect to so called “Open
Internet”. The reason this discussion is
called “Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet” is because the “industry”
that controls Internet traffic has created or let’s say “manufactured” this
issue by attacking the “21st Century” companies that are delivering
content via the Internet. Once again
they are using their overwhelmingly powerful positions as virtual monopolies in
the delivery of service and oligopoly status as backbone providers to lobby the
government to maintain this power and position just like they have done so in
the past. In reality there is no
issue. The Internet is just fine as an
open network with equal access to all.
It just so happens, some of the companies that control access to the
Internet also are “last mile” companies, providing consumers access to the
internet. These companies also have
invested in content creation, for example Verizon’s investment in making FIOS
an alternative to Cable for TV viewing, and are in direct competition with true
new generation Internet Media Companies like Netflix or YouTube (Actually today
many prior mostly information providers like AOL or retailers like Amazon are
getting into the “program creation” game).
Other “last mile” companies like the cable firms are also very
interested in making this an “issue” as they to are in the content business,
especially Comcast (now in merger agreement with Time Warner Cable), who also
owns NBC Universal, also a “Media Company”.
Another entire area of explosive growth via the Internet are
communication services like Skype, Viber, Kakao, Google Talk, Nimbuzz and a
host of others that are rapidly making the last dominant area of the Regional
Bell companies and Long Distance providers completely obsolete, driving their
legacy business further in the grave. I
use these services myself and I believe these services present the most
disruptive alternative communications technology that has emerged. They are connecting people all over the world
for no extra cost then their Internet connection whether it is broadband,
landline (DSL, cable and the like) or over mobile networks. In my mind the Internet providers via their PR
firms, lawyers and lobbyist are using Netscape and other such content delivery
services as a scapegoat for practical reasons, to divert focus of the real
threat to their legacy telecommunications services (the Public Access
Telecommunications Services). The
reality today is the Internet is the Public Access Telecommunications Service
of the 21st Century and there is no questioning this reality any
longer.
We all know the tendency of these Telecommunications
providers, be they Internet Backbone or Last mile service providers or both, to
cry foul when someone is disrupting their dominant positions. We also know their cries are completely foul
and without merit. If one looks at
Netflix for example, one must also look at Amazon. Amazon took upon the challenge to host
Netflix’s content nationally and the explosive growth in Netflix’s popularity
did not cause Amazon to cry foul and run to the government for “help” or a
“bail out”. Instead Amazon worked and
continues to work day and night upgrading their technology, to deliver an
impressive load of as much as 30% of the traffic of the Internet during peak
times not just to TV’s all over the nation but to any and every devise out
there that is capable of receiving Netflix’s service, all scaled to maximize
the user experience while minimizing the use of network resources and delivered
from the nearest access point in a few milliseconds. Why are the RBOC’s and Internet Backbone and
Cable companies not taking up the same challenge? The technology is there to
manage all the Internet traffic the most robust providers of content can
muster. Whether you are Facebook,
YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, AOL, Yahoo, Google or the latest new entry into the
content space, the ability to offer “Open Internet” access is NOT
Challenged. As long as customers demand
access to these services and are willing to pay for Internet access, there is a
business model that will be profitable.
Any person with even the slightest knowledge of what is
going on in the Internet / Media / Telecommunication industry knows where there
are HUGE conflicts of interest and knows why, especially in the US, where
regulated (or unregulated depending on what side of the spectrum you are on in
your interpretation of reality) monopolies aka Internet Service Providers, control
consumer access to the Internet / Television, this has become such a “big”
issue that has now made it’s way the FCC.
However, I cannot stress enough that the issue of “Open Internet” is
completely manufactured primarily these ISP’s and it is these same firms that
have kept Americans in the dark so to speak with respect to reasonably priced
high speed internet access for a couple of decades now. Only today, in 2014, they have grown larger,
their control over access has become more concentrated and their behavior more
monopolistic.
Let me give you a little history lesson from the 1990’s.
I started my business in 1988-9 before the Internet was a
readably available service. Dealing with
the Regional Incumbent Bell Operating Companies (Bell Atlantic at that time) was
a nightmare. They were rigid, expensive,
had poor customer service, belligerent, righteous and completely unpleasant to
deal with (As of 2012, the last time I had to deal with them from a business
perspective, nothing had changed. To wake up knowing I had to deal with Verizon
that day meant 4 plus hours of my time in agony and disgust). The biggest game in town at that time was
Long Distance and the circus of companies trying to obtain your business,
including the RBOC’s, either legally or illegally (cramming, slamming etc.) was
intense. I cannot tell you how many
times I tried to do something with my telephone service and had a “customer
service” rep literally read me regulations, regulations they essentially used
to their advantage for years and helped write, telling me what they could not
do.
Within a few short years the Internet emerged via dial up
Internet Service Providers who were soon knocking at my door and mailing disks
and calling me all to obtain my business.
This ISP industry exploded in the back yards of the RBOC’s and they
completely blew it off. They were busy
taking the money they were gouging from us suckers who were stuck in their
service areas and “investing” it overseas or busy paying out huge dividends to
their shareholders while continuing to operate analog switching technology,
upgrading at a snail’s pace to digital technology (while the rest of the
developed world was already offering early more reliable digital services like
ISDN not to mention already having launched digital wireless services). It was not that the RBOC’s were unaware of
these technologies. They would be
fighting in say the UK or some country in S. America for competitive access to
the local telecommunications market at the same time back in the US they had
armies of lawyers defending their monopolies and their poor operating
practices.
Anyway, after a few short years these telecom firms woke up
one morning and realized their half century or older legacy networks could no
longer handle all this traffic that was being routed on their networks by the
emerging ISP industry. Just like good
monopolist what did they do? Well they
ran to Uncle Sam of course and the FCC and cried for “metered” local telephone
service saying they did not have the money to upgrade their networks, or they
were just plain unwilling to make the investment for “someone else’s benefit” i.e.;
the ISP’s who were charging $10-$30 per month per phone line to access the
internet.
The Smartest thing the FCC and Congress did in my lifetime
with respect to telecommunications was to tell the RBOC’s “NO” to metered
service. As we all know now, that
stampede of ISP’s entering the telecommunications industry was the largest
motivation for the 1996 Telecommunications Deregulation Bill that passed
congress and became law only to have nearly every aspect of it overturned
through the courts with the hundreds of millions of taxpayer / ratepayer
monopoly dollars the RBOC’s, led by Verizon, threw at the law through the
courts to have it overturned. The idea
that the infrastructure could be shared by competing firms who could offer
local telecommunications service, internet etc. using new technology was
squashed nearly as fast as it took hold. As it is today, those facilities all
over the nation that housed legacy analog switching technology could have
easily housed multiple companies accessing the network. I have seen in my own back yard these legacy
buildings being torn down or redeveloped into condos or what have you. In the mean time, the RBOC’s of the time held
manipulated congress and FCC threatening not to upgrade their networks
(installing Fiber etc.) as long as there was competitive access. This was a very tactical game played by the
Lawyer run RBOC’s in a strategic battle to maintain their monopoly status and
continue to soak as much money as possible out of their monopoly territories
while stifling all competition’s attempts to circumvent their outdated legacy
technology and offer better services to the end users. The RBOC’s won that battle and still operate
as monopolies today (along with their cable brethren).
What is the moral of this story? Simple. For anyone with any understanding of
the recent history of Telecommunications in America today knows without
question where and why there is an “issue” of “Open Internet” today. These same companies since those days 20
years ago have become entertainment providers, using their monopoly status to
capture every aspect of communications in the end user’s house, their phone service,
internet service and television service and in many cases their wireless service.
Now there are alternative “content providers” using the
Internet to deliver their content and at the same time are charging their end
users a monthly fee (not unlike ISP’s in the early days of the Internet) the
ISP’s of today (the same old monopoly operators) don’t like it and they have
never liked when they are not getting a piece of the action. They are doing nothing but the same old asking
for metered service of the Internet just like they did with local phone calls
20 years ago. They are likely prepared
to sue, or threaten not to invest / upgrade their networks, claim they cannot
handle the traffic or a combination of all of the above plus whatever else
their lawyers and accountants can think up to put the fear of Jesus into the
FCC and Congress that the whole house is about to come crumbling down if they
don’t do something.
Well I have the solution for you. You, the FCC, tell the companies that control
access to the Internet and or the Backbone to the Internet or both, “You either
invest in your networks to keep up with the demands of the Internet as a whole
or we will pull your charter to operate in the United States and auction it to
someone who will.” It is a simple as
that. Expect a check in the mail once
the auction is over with and see ya!
That is my suggestion to you nice people there in the FCC
and Congress. Don’t take their
crap. They are NOT leading the world in
any aspect of what they do. They have
forever scalped their end users with inferior technology and kept America years
behind other developed (or even developing nations going back 20 years if you
consider Korea or Hungary for example) nations in Internet access technology
and services. Keep the Internet Open and
put it in Law. The Internet is the new Public Access
Communications Platform of today and Open Access is not to be threatened again
PERIOD. Like it or Leave it. It’s as simple
as that.
Sincerely,
