Opinion: What's Wrong with Net Neutrality - ' Deregulation '

Deregulation
Net neutrality is a new front in the continuing struggle, both in the U.S. and abroad, to redefine communications law. It used to be that the telephone system handled two-way telephone calls, the cable networks sent programming over coaxial cable, and computer companies provided data services. The respective technologies employed by each made it difficult, even impossible, for them to compete with one another. But IT has the unfortunate habit of converging and di verging in unpredictable ways, and there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the "telecommunications industry" and any other part of the information business.

Now, at least in theory, every major communications technology—cable, telephone, wireless, satellite, cellular—can do everything, in large part because of the spread and enhancement of (open, neutral) Internet protocols. But despite ten years of deregulation in the U.S., some information providers (AT&T and Verizon, among others) are still heavily regulated by the FCC, while others (cable, satellite and content providers) are not. Congress, for example, just increased by a factor of ten the amount of fines the FCC can levy on broadcasters who air indecent material, such as Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction. But these fines apply only to "free" TV, not premium cable (e.g., HBO) or satellite (e.g., Howard Stern). There's no reason for the different treatment.

So it's at least a little disingenuous for the proponents of net neutrality to talk about democracy and level playing fields and the American Way. Many of the companies currently opposing mandatory neutrality have been operating at a regulatory disadvantage for a very long time, and the rationale for that different treatment is disappearing. Seen this way, net neutrality is another version of the fight that's been going on since Judge Harold Greene split up the telecom baby back in 1984, while praying that technology would keep the pieces separate—which, of course, technology refused to do. Whether or not tiered pricing for network traffic (fast and slow lanes) would help or hurt telecommunications companies, we should acknowledge that there's nothing "neutral" about the current legal rules governing who can and cannot make money in the information business, or how they can do so. Increasingly, there's nothing rational about these rules, either.

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