1974 The FCC is expected to announce plans today for new regulations designed to force carriers (i.e. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, etc.) to treat all data flowing across their networks equally.  If the Commission has its way, these companies will be prohibited from manipulating the bits and bytes that you and I exchange with companies like Vonage, Skype, YouTube and Hulu.  This is pretty big news in the industry.  This battle has been brewing for a few years now between the content providers and the gatekeepers.  Now it seems that the gatekeepers are about to lose the first round.

Before you go putting your life savings into Vonage stock, keep in mind that last month a high court called into question the ability of the FCC to impose its will when it comes to Internet services.  It seem that  laws and regulations as they exist today do not appear to give the Commission the authority to do that.    A bit of a monkey wrench to be sure, but the Congress appears to standing in support of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, indicating that we might be seeing some overhaul of telecom laws as they specifically relate to Internet access and services.  Lawmaking means the lobbyists all get giant Christmas bonuses, so this is merely the first shot in what promises to be a protracted and bloody conflict.

Here's the rub, at least the way I see it.  We would not be in this boat if our government had not happily assisted in the shrinking of the access market from 4000 ISPs in 1996 to less than 10 that actually matter today.  With real competition, Comcast would never dream of filtering or slowing YouTube knowing that its customers could easily choose another ISP.  Instead, the vast majority of households and small-to-medium businesses have exactly two choices when it comes to access to the Internet - the giant phone company or the giant cable company.  Thank you, Congress and the FCC.  Thanks for the big menu.    With only two access providers to choose from in any given market, why is it a surprise to anyone that consumer-unfriendly stuff is happening that might require government regulation to keep in check?  Don't just blame the government though.  For the carriers, this is a giant dose of  "be careful what you wish for".   After having done a really good job ensuring that any meaningful competition was crushed, nobody at Verizon or Time Warner should be in the least surprised that they're in this situation now.

In the end, sadly, almost nothing the FCC does is really going to matter anyway.   They might as well be shooting spitballs at an aircraft carrier, because all the regulations and fines they can muster have proven to be no obstacle to large telcos and cable operators over time.  Rules are stretched, then bent, then ignored, stomped on and urinated on.  Remember when Verizon basically gave away dry copper pairs to "Verizon Online", which then sold DSL for far less than any ISP could possibly sell it for?  Remember how that singlehandedly wiped out almost every ISP in the Verizon service area when the shift from dial-up to broadband happened?  That wasn't a problem, because Verizon Online was an independent company.  Right.  How silly of me to think that something underhanded was going on.  

So today we'll find out where the battle lines are going to be drawn.  It should prove to be very interesting to watch this story unfold over time.

Next time we'll touch on how net neutrality, or the lack of it, will impact you as a creator or deliverer of content online.

Founded in 1996, MacConnect is the first and largest Mac-Centric ISP on the planet. Providing world class hosting solutions that are as easy as your Mac, MacConnect is the first choice for any Mac user in need of web, email and application hosting. Find us online at MacConnect.com

Tags: Blogs ï All Things infrastructure ï

Login † or † Register † †