Urgent: The FCC's Genachowski Is Playing With Fire And America/Radio is About to Get Burned - Eric Rhoads - MediaBizBloggers

As in a magic show things are not always what they appear to be In Washington gentle names are given to horrible ideas so they appear fine to the general public The FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski are about to pull the wool over the eyes of America then clobber us over the headThe FCC is due to vote December 21 on a set of new quotnet neutralityquot regulations Sounds harmless right The open meeting at which the vote will be held was moved from December 15 leading some to speculate that the commission wanted to bury this key vote in holiday distractions But that isn39t really Chairman Genachowski39s styleIndeed Genachowski has been quite straightforward about his desire to get regulatory control of the Internet So was his predecessor Kevin Martin whose attempt to sanction Comcast for throttling down BitTorrent traffic ultimately led to the Comcast v FCC decision in which the DC appeals court ruled that the commission had overreached its authority in attempting to tell Comcast how to run its networkBut sharks want to swim and regulators want to regulate and the commission couldn39t shrug off that Comcast decision So one of Genachowski39s leading priorities as chairman indeed practically his only public priority has been to get FCC control over the Internet To that end he has adopted the language of quotNet neutralityquot and the quotopen InternetquotBeware of a wolf in sheep39s clothingWhat exactly does Genachowski want to do in the name of openness and neutrality It39s all fairly murky right now The commission hasn39t released the exact draft rules on which it intends to vote Keeps us guessing and reduces flakBut the rules will Genachowski said involve a quottransparencyquot requirement a fairly hilarious demand from an agency that won39t make public the industrychanging rules on which it plans to vote in less than three weeks There will also be a ban on quotunreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network trafficquot But the rules will allow for quotreasonable network managementquotAll very ahem reasonable right But setting aside the question of what the FCC will consider to be reasonable and the likelihood that any definition will be flexible enough to adjust as technology develops rather than simply stopping that development in its tracks the fact is how private businesses manage the infrastructure in which they have invested their own resources is none of the FCC39s concernAnd more to the point quotnet neutralityquot is a solution to an imaginary problemThough there have been periodic disputes no one is contending that telecom or cable companies are interfering with broadband traffic in any systematic way What worries the quotnet neutralityquot brigade is the notion that these sinister quotgatekeepersquot could do it if they wanted to comments from Free Press and other activist groups are full of references to what these companies could do or really want to do Comcast39s illconsidered decision to mislead customers about its blocking BitTorrent was not helpful in this part of the debate But that was in 2007 eons ago in Internet timeRight now the explosive growth of the bandwidthintensive Netflix and no doubt Netflix rivals to come could cause some issues in fairly short order In fact Level 3 is duking it out in public right now over Comcast39s desire to charge Level 3 more for access to its network now that Level 3 has a contract to supply streaming to Netflix Level 3 says Comcast is violating net neutrality principles with the proposed added fees Comcast says Level 3 wants to reframe longstanding trafficexchange principles among networks as a net neutrality issueBut consumers who find their movie service being degraded or who are being charged extra for quotexcessquot bandwidth will soon find new providers It will likely get rocky for a while and then technology and the market will sort it out This is how it39s worked for some 25 years during which the Internet has merrily thrived with hardly any government regulation at allIt is also worth noting that Genachowski specified that he is no longer looking to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications service which would mean treating it as though it were a monopoly phone company He couldn39t get that notion past even the current Congress which has not been one might say averse to government overreachThe FCC is naturally splitting along party lines on this with the two Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker releasing blunt statements in opposition and Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps in supportThis will be approved later this month though Copps who is ordinarily Genachowski39s reliable wingman is still apparently holding out hope for Title II regulation Indeed the fact that Copps is in favor of quotNet neutralityquot is in itself a pretty good indication that this is not about freedom and openness Take a look at Copps39 latest ideas for broadcastersMichael Copps sees it as part of the FCC39s mandate to investigate and judge the quotstate of journalismquot and to create tests of a station39s quotpublic valuequot and even to count how many local or regional artists get on the air What sort of regulation do you suppose Copps will feel is appropriate for an FCCcontrolled InternetWhat39s this got to do with radio Radio like every other media business is going to rely more and more on the Internet for revenue and content delivery Digital is already a key and growing part of radio39s business model The FCC would like to insert itself into that part of your business introducing regulatory uncertainty unsettling potential investors and interfering with the natural development of the market and of technology Does that sound appealingTo allow the FCC to get its hands on the Internet on the basis that bad things might happen things that have natural marketdriven solutions would be wildly shortsighted and destructive Indeed the very notion that government regulation of any communications medium will lead to greater freedom and openness would be laughable if it weren39t so dangerousThere39s probably nothing that can stop the FCC from approving this in a partyline vote on December 21 But some legislators have already vowed that they39ll do everything they can to undo it I urge you to get in touch with your representatives and help make sure that stopping Genachowski and the FCC from taking control of the Internet is a top priority in the new CongressB Eric Rhoads is CEO of Streamline Publishing Inc Rhoads writes regular columns for his publications and is an active blogger in the radio and art industries including Radio Ink Tank Artist Marketing and Blue Chip Gallery Marketing He is an active speaker consultant and advocate in the radio art and technology industries and he sits on a number of advisory boards Eric can be reached at ericRadioInkcomRead all Ericamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Ink Tank with B Eric RhoadsCheck us out on Facebook at 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