[governance] [Dewayne-Net] Shutting Down The Phone System Gets Real: The Regulatory Implications of AT&T Upgrading To An All IP Network

[Norbert Bollow]

Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm sure this is naïve of me, but I'm wondering what the difference
> (at the level of principle) might be between arguing as below, for
> regulation (in support of the public interest) for an IP based
> network through the FCC and arguing for regulation of "the
> Internet" (in support of the public interest) at the WCIT/the ITU (as
> per for example
> http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/the-ituwcit-thinking-about-internet
> -regulatory-policy-from-an-ldc-perspective/
> 
> (and please could we discuss this at the level of theory/principle
> while avoiding US "exceptionalism"...

I would suggest that the main difference is that the classical telephony
network has a single, well-understood main purpose which is not changing
over time. This makes it possible to have meaningful regulation that
ties directly into this purpose.

By contrast, the Internet is designed to be useful quite generally
without tying it to any particular intended main purpose. As a
consequence, the Internet enables rapid innovation of new ways in which
it can be used. This fast evolution is a significant difference in
regard to practical feasibility of regulation. As a matter of
principle, it is not possible to effectively address by means
of regulation aspects can that change more quickly than the time
that it takes to change the regulations, except of course if people
are willing to accept regulation that significantly slows down the
pace of innovation.

There are still issues that are sufficiently fundamental and
therefore slow-changing that effective regulation is possible and in
fact highly desirable. For example, I'm all in favor of a strong network
neutrality principle which says that a company in the business of
transmitting Internet protocol datagrams may define its price structure
only in terms of properties of the service of transmitting these
datagrams. (This allows to distinguish between a basic "best effort"
service and a more expensive service with stronger QoS guarantees, but
disallows the various "profit maximization at the expense of the
integrity of the Internet" schemes.) 

Greetings,
Norbert

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