Last week’s slap on the wrist for Comcast was one of the
more curious chapters in the incoherent effort to regulate the Internet in the
United States. The Federal Communications Agency reprimanded the largest U.S. cable TV operator for interfering in data exchanges between its
customers. Comcast had slowed transfers between users of BitTorrent on the
grounds that the sending of large files (often illegally-copied music and
video) was clogging up its network.
The FCC did not fine the company for its actions but said
its targeting of peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent was discriminatory.
The agency also chided Comcast’s failure to let customers know what it was
doing. The company, hardly satisfied despite getting off scot-free, announced
it would consider appealing the decision. “We believe that our network
management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices,”
Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement. “We are
considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission
rejected our attempts to settle this issue without further delays.”
An appeal would open a can of worms because the FCC has no
clear authority to regulate the Internet. And its efforts so far have not
worked very well. Consider the cost of Internet access in the U.S., one of the
highest in the industrialized world. For
a triple-play subscription in Paris with Free, a French provider, I pay $45 for
70 TV channels, many of them high-definition, Internet access (20 megabit
download speed) and free telephone service to more than 70 countries.
That’s about a third of what I pay in New York for services
that include much slower Internet access. One reason: competition. A hesitant
FCC never truly enforced rules that were meant to make Internet access a
competitive sport. Instead of forcing carriers to allow independent Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) access to their facilities, the big players delayed
and obfuscated until many of the ISPs were practically out of business.
The Comcast case touches uneasily on the issue of Internet “neutrality,”
which may be why Comcast is considering an appeal. Proponents of “neutrality”
argue that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Internet service
providers say they should be able to charge different rates for different types
of traffic and limit transmission rates, on the grounds that a few users can
monopolize and slow the system.
Congress has considered enshrining net neutrality into law,
an option that other telecom companies are not excited about. Last week, many
supported the FCC’s decision, pointing out that the issue was resolved without
the input of legislators.
The U.S. has rightly allowed the Internet to flourish with
as little regulatory interference as possible. But was we have learned from the
mortgage crisis and the Internet bubble, self-correction can elude the players
in a heated market. At some point, the U.S. Congress will have to set some
rules for the Web and provide the FCC the guidance it needs to create rules
that make sense.