Bob Pepper, Chief of Poilicy Development at the FCC, says the bellhead/nethead dichotomy is false. The FCC doesn’t want to take over the Net. He’s going to talk about the effect of “Everything over IP,” not just Voice over IP. [Bob is a great person to send to this. He “gets” the Net and is open to actual discussion.]

The old rules were written, he said, back when there was a non-competitive model because there were “natural monopolies.” The regulations were written to protect producers in the name of consumers. And they were written when the conduits told you something about the content and defined boundaries. They were based on an economic model that no longer holds; the metric — minutes of voice — doesn’t make sense any more. In a broadband packet world, it’s not just voice, and minutes is an irrelevant measure. Besides, he says, what sense does “acoustic regulation” make?

With VoIP, we’re now getting state regulations and even lawsuits from unions. The FCC has an Internet Poilicy Working Group, guiding FCC decisions. He says, “This is not the FCC taking over the internet. In fact, I have people I’ve been working with for over a decade to keep the FCC at bay from the Internet.” [Doesn’t that imply that the FCC wants to take over the Internet? Why else keep it at bay?] Billions of dollars are at stake: In 2002, local revenue for the telcos was $88.7B. Revenues from wireless now is higher than from wire-line. The Universal service fund (subsidies?) in 2003: $713M for low income, $1.64B for libraries and schools. Revenues from interstate switch access minutes (long distance) has declained 23% in the past four years to something like $280B. The total billable wireless minutes has increased 400%. [Warning: As always, I am more likely to get numbers wrong than right.]

“In a global packet world, what’s the role of a state regulatory? If you’re worried about the FCC…where have most of these regulations popped up?” In the states and in other countries, he answers. He lays out a set of question: Who decides? What gets regulated? How do you achieve the social goals? How do you define the stuff to be regulated?

VoIP: An Agenda for Change

Separate economic regulation for social policy: Find new ways to maintain social policy goals regardless of economic regulation.

Reform/ratonalize regulated economic relations

FCC proceedings

Legislation? Some people, like Dan Gillmor (Bob says) want more legislation to preserve the net freedoms Michael Power has outlined: Freedom to access content, to use applications, to connect personal devices, to obtain service plan information. [Why does “access content” send a chill down my spine? Ah, it’s because it’s the wrong paradigm/metaphor/frame.]

[I’m not convinced yet that the FCC is looking out for my interests as a Netizen. I’m glad Bob’s there, though.]

Categories: Uncategorized dw