To: openinternet@fcc.gov
Subject: Internet must remain open
To the commissioners:
Those who object to regulating internet service providers to ensure an open internet, as the FCC is currently proposing to do, adhere to the rigid political philosophy that regulation, by definition, stifles competition, innovation, growth, etc.
However, this philosophy is only even theoretically true when there is real competition and an even playing field. Unfortunately, the plain fact of the matter is that when it comes to internet service, far too many consumers don’t benefit from either real competition or an even playing field. In those circumstances, not only does regulation not stifle growth, regulation is essential for growth.
More than 30% of Americans live in areas where internet service is a monopoly. This problem is getting worse, not better, as cable companies continue to merge, leading to fewer competitors with iron-fisted control over larger and larger swaths of territory. Allowing the massive internet providers to game the system even further by charging fees for better access to their networks, or by charging their customers for access to content from outside their network, e.g., by introducing bandwidth caps that exclude content produced by the internet provider, will cause consumers to be screwed over even more than they already are. How anyone can suggest otherwise for a straight face is incomprehensible.
Those who oppose classification of the internet as a Title II common carrier make hyperbolic references to how “backwards” Title II regulations and how we need to look toward the future rather than the past. The fact of the matter is that the strict regulations placed for many years on POTS providers are the only thing that ensured that every person in America has access to telephone service. That is exactly what is needed for internet service, which is why it should be classified as a Title II common carrier and aggressively regulated to bring fast internet to everyone, everywhere in the United States.
Those who claim that such regulation will force the large internet providers to raise their rates are blowing smoke. Comcast, for example, is raking in huge profits, literally at the expense of consumers, by providing legendarily poor service and charging ridiculously high prices. If its prices were regulated, as telephone prices were for many years, it would still make a profit, it just wouldn’t be able to fleece consumers quite as much as it can now.
Congress is completely dysfunctional and is almost completely incapable of passing any substantive consumer-protection legislation. If that means it falls on the FCC to figure out how to reinterpret the laws Congress has already passed to allow it to enact meaningful open-internet regulations that will protect consumers, then so be it. Godspeed and get to work.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
