Law and the Open Internet
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to issue a new set of internet access regulations and policies. These would prohibit broadband service providers, such as AT&T or Comcast, from “discriminating” against unaffiliated content providers. The FCC’s proceedings, and the network neutrality debate, concentrate on two economic questions (i) whether to broadband service providers can or will steer traffic to affiliated content limiting consumer access and (ii) how to preserve the Internet’s capacity for creativity and innovation. Despite economics’ prominence in the debate, economic theory cannot answer these questions. Theoretical models of vertical foreclosure are ambiguous and inconclusive and empirical data nonexistent. And, the debate misapplies normative, legal concepts of “discrimination” and “equal treatment” onto internet traffic management engineering. These concepts worked in a circuit switched telephone network in which “equality” can exist at switch points, but make little sense in the packet-switched internet in which “equality of outcomes” of internet experience is what matters.With its narrow focus, the debate has also missed that actual internet disputes, such as the BitTorrent-Comcast Order, involve many legal concerns, such as privacy, that have little to do with “discrimination” as such. Policymakers lack theoretical understanding and empirical knowledge concerning internet industrial organization. We, therefore, argue for a “bottom up” approach to regulation, analogous to fair use in copyright law, with case-specific adjudications creating a common law of acceptable network practice.
Conceptualized Framework for Regulation of OTT Video Services: A New Battlefield of Interconnection and Peering *
Under the two broad concepts of net neutrality and IP interconnection, it is not easy to distinguish the paid prioritization and paid peering. The prioritized service may be prohibited under a strict net neutrality rule while the paid peering may be a normal arrangement of commercial interconnection. For better service quality, the paid peering replaces the 'best efforts' with 'better than best efforts' which fits customers' desire. In fact, prioritized delivery options for content providers may satisfy specialized requirements in much the same ways as CDNs offer higher QoS and delivery guarantees. In many cases, large content providers build their own CDNs that may also act themselves as normal ISPs by offering terms and conditions that seem equivalent to peering arrangements. The paper also discusses the case of Taiwan authority amending rules to 'regulate' the IP interconnection in order to balance the market power of existing monopolistic operator. Though the measures of reform stop in the consideration whether the rulemaking is adequate or not, the government should carefully review every step it takes to deal with problems of the entire fixed-network market. In conclusion, the paper argues that governments should defer to commercially driven interconnection arrangements and should still be ready to resolve the disputes that become harmful to consumers.
Internet over Cable: Defining the Future in Terms of the Past
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