Policy: Wireless in crosshair of net neutrality debate

Mobile operators could begin feeling the squeeze of net neutrality regulations, something that so far has been more the domain of the industry’s wired rivals.
According to a report from Reuters, the Federal Communications Commission is seeking comments as to whether it should include wireless operators in its plans to alter current net neutrality regulations. Those regulations are targeted at maintaining open access to Internet services offered by Internet service providers.
The FCC in 2010 released net neutrality rules that allowed for “reasonable network management” from wireless carriers, noting that wireless networks were more easily impacted by network traffic compared with wired Internet connections. That impact comes from the amount of wireless spectrum a carrier has to carry data traffic.
The FCC has tried to alleviate some of the spectrum issues in recent months, having earlier this year auctioned off 10 megahertz of spectrum in the H-Block, and plans to auction off additional spectrum resources in the AWS-3 auction later this year and 600 MHz incentive auction scheduled for next year. Last week, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.) introduced the Wireless Innovation Act, calling for the federal government to reallocate spectrum assets used by federal agencies for commercial use.
However, consumer demand for wireless services have began to out-strip the spectrum capacity of some operators. Wireless operators have been forced to manage network access by either offering capped data plans or by inserting terms and conditions that allow for the operator to throttle data speeds should a consumer be deemed as consuming more than their share of resources. Both of those tactics are seen in the wired Internet world as counter to an open Internet policy.
“The FCC already acknowledged the unique nature of wireless, specifically the technical and operational challenges our industry faces, including the need to … actively manage networks to provide high quality service to a customer base that is constantly on the go,” said Meredith Baker, CEO of wireless trade association CTIA in the Reuters report.
Comments on the issue are due into the FCC by Sept. 20.
–Connected to the net neutrality debate, the FCC said it plans to take a closer look at recent peering issues brought up by Netflix against certain ISPs. Netflix earlier this year announced paid agreements with Comcast and Verizon Communications to gain direct access to the Internet backbone of those ISPs and bypassing the traditional third-party peering connections.
Netflix has been vocal in noting that consumers accessing its streaming content service have seen their connection speeds slowly deteriorate, with those speeds then beginning to increase once the company has agreed to such “paid interconnection” agreements.
“Consumers must get what they pay for. As the consumer’s representative we need to know what is going on,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. “I have therefore directed the commission staff to obtain the information we need to understand precisely what is happening in order to understand whether consumers are being harmed. Recently, at my direction, commission staff has begun requesting information from ISPs and content providers. We have received the agreements between Comcast and Netflix and Verizon and Netflix. We are currently in the process of asking for others.”
–The Telecommunications Industry Association came out this week noting that the FCC should refrain from taking regulatory action related to the outage of 911 services across portions of the Northwest on April 9-10.
The FCC last month announced that the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau had opened an inquiry into the outage that impacted more than 4,500 911 calls to public safety answering points during a six-hour period. CenturyLink, which is the wireline telecommunications service provider for the region, blamed its vendor partner Intrado.
“TIA supports the commission’s efforts to ensure that these networks are reliable and resilient, but the FCC should refrain from taking regulatory action, and encourage and allow network operators and vendors to continue their voluntary efforts in improving the reliability of their networks,” TIA noted in a statement.
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