End of the Internet as we know it?

Congress is in the process of changing the rules of the internet and the consequences could be bad for educators and students. The Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 that recently passed out of the US House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee is one large step toward altering the internet landscape and deeply affect our ability to teach and learn online. (S2686 has been introduced in the Senate.) I've written about this possibility in earlier posts: "
Where is Higher Ed in the Broadband Debate?" "Will there be networked learning?" and "Ohio Digital Divide Working Group."

In a nutshell, here is what is happening and why I find it troubling. The COPE Act is intended to update existing Telecommunications law to reflect digital communications. It is driven mainly by the traditional phone companies who now want to offer video services. Under current law, video providers must negotiate local franchise agreements with localities to use public right of way to deliver their services. The phone companies do want this impediment -- their argument, not mine -- to rolling out there services. The cable companies, therefore, do want phone companies to have a competitive advantage so they want franchising removed as well.

Additionally, both phone and cable companies want to be able to discriminate among the bits of information that travel on their networks. Historically, internet services grew in an environment of network neutrality. Phone companies had to operate as common carriers which meant that no phone call, and later no data bit, could be given preference over another data bit. This gave all users of the network equal footing from the individual user to the largest corporation and created an environment that has fueled the economic creative and cultural explosion of the dozen or so years. Cable was classified differently under FCC rules and was not subject to network neutrality. A long legal battle recently culminated in an court ruling that the affirmed the FCC classification. The FCC then changed its rules to remove network neutrality requirements from DSL providers. The media giants now want to put the FCC rulemaking into law, given network owners the right to control bits moving through their network.

What is the problem with all this? Local franchising has been one of the few mechanisms through which local communities can enforce service standards and leverage local resources to support community television channels, leverage funds to support community technology access and training, and require affordable service to areas that might be considered unprofitable to telcos. The new legislation creates national franchising and moves service enforcement to the FCC, an agency notoriously lax in enforcing its own rules. Moreover, the legislation provides no build out requirements that ensure that all areas are provided the same high speed access.

What is at stake is a local community's ability to use technology and internet connectivity as a engine for economic development. The National League of Cities, therefore, strongly opposes this legislation. As OCCN director Angela Stuber writes,

If no incentive is given to encourage them to build out the networks in less profitable areas (that is low income and rural), we have no reason to believe those areas will ever receive the fiber. In order to provide low cost competition in a wealthy neighborhood, how do you think the company will recover their cost? 10-1 the answer is to recover the cost through their other services that are provided in all neighborhoods (phone, DSL). So the result is that the poor will be subsidizing the high speed fiber of the rich.

As educators who engage in online networked learning, many of our potential students may not have the high quality access needed to take full advantage of media rich teaching and learning.

The end of network neutrality may have the same effect. Both cable and phone company executives are on record saying that they will institute "Tiering," the creation of fast network routing for preferred content and slower network routing for those who fail to pay for faster access. Or content could be blocked entirely if it conflicts with the business or political relationships of the provider. If you are a fan of YouTube or Google search, you may find those services slow and spotty because your provider -- SBC, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.-- has its own services or business partnerships that it gives priority. Would they begin charging consumers to cover their cost of network access?

Would a school, government or community organization providing media content be considered a competitor? Would colleges have to pay network operators to get preferred tiering? If a distance learning program is truly global, how operators would we have to pay? What does tiering do to the personal broadcasting revolution that is giving individuals and public interest organizations the ability to create audiences and reach constituents?

The legislative course we are on codifies scarcity and places control of heavily subsidized network in the hands of incumbent network providers. We should instead be forging a plan of abundance, investing in building a public good that truly creates a free market for innovation. The telco giants may not be winners, but anyone else with a good idea and the resources implement it will be. Public fiber, returned analog broadcast spectrum, and broadband over powerline our all potential platforms to create universal high speed access. Many local communities have built, or plan to build, their own local networks. Some are fiber, others are high speed wireless. The current legislation "permits" this but the same companies backing the national telecom legislation have been acting at the state level to block municipal networks. If the larger Congress fails to change legislative course, the communities right to network may be the last on ramp to a free and open internet.

Technorati Tags: COPE, Network Neutrality, Franchising