Net neutrality debate underscores fine line on regulation

A public debate between CTIA and Public Knowledge over the impacts of imposing net neutrality rules on wireless carriers yesterday highlighted the fine line regulators will face in imposing just enough regulation and too much regulation as they try to preserve an open wireless Internet.
Chris Guttman-McCabe, CTIA’s vice president of regulatory affairs, debated Public Knowledge CEO Gigi Sohn on how the Federal Communications Commission should regulate wireless broadband services. While the two organizations agree that narrow rules are better than wide rules, their definitions of narrow vary.
The FCC under Chairman Julius Genachowski added two tenants to rules governing the Internet in September, adding non-discrimination and transparency. The first rule centers on “non-discrimination,” which the FCC explained means ISPs “cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers’ homes. Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider. The Internet must continue to allow users to decide what content and applications succeed.”
The second principal Genachowski called “transparency,” and revolves around ISPs being open with both consumers and the government on any and all network management implemented on their networks.
In the proposed rulemaking, the commission says that wireless service providers should be allowed to “reasonably” manage their networks, and much of the dissent centers around that phrase.
Public Knowledge’s Sohn argued that the FCC needs to include language similar to that of Canada’s regulatory agency. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has said that service providers need to show that their network practices bear a close relationship to an important network management goal, such as relieving congestion on the network.
CTIA’s Guttman-McCabe said the FCC hasn’t demonstrated that any of these rules are necessary, and that the recent complaints about a less-than-open wireless Internet have not been due to carrier actions.
“We don’t want two different Internets,” Sohn said, pointing out the juxtaposition that AT&T Mobility is asking its users to consume less content on its network. Guttman-McCabe defended the carrier, noting that AT&T has seen its wireless traffic increase 5,000% in the last three years. Further, because some people are downloading extremely large amounts of data, they are impacting other customers, who then are frustrated when their calls drop or they can’t connect, Guttman-McCabe commented. Data use on a wireless network does impact voice and other services. Carriers are not managing networks for some inanimate object, he said. “It’s managed for the people in this room.”
Service providers should be able to throttle back some applications during times of congestion if the network is performing poorly, Sohn said, but not block specific applications. “What wireless providers want to do is pick winners and losers.”
But some applications by their very nature are going to impact the network, Guttman-McCabe said. Three people using Sling Media’s Slingbox can take down a cell site. “That’s problematic.” Carriers want the right to be able to be proactive in managing their networks, not reactive.
The Sling Media issue brought on criticism that AT&T won’t let that company use its 3G service, but does let Major League Baseball run a video application over its 3G network. The MLB application automatically recognizes when it is impacting the network and reduces the pixel-size of the video, thus using less bandwidth, Guttman-McCabe said. However, he stopped short of saying that all applications that would offer similar self-healing features should be allowed on all networks.
The FCC is seeking comments on the proposed rules in January and reply comments in March.