#commoncarriage

The practices at issue are known as “zero-rating” and are the most recent frontier in the battle over “network neutrality”, but which I prefer to refer to as common carriage in line with the more formal terms of telecoms law and history.

Hallelujah!  And if zero-rating was offered non-discriminatorily to users, like 0800 was in telephony, does the absence of discrimination make that legitimate?  I say yes, and CRTC says maybe like:

[T]he CRTC’s new Differential Pricing Framework leaves some wiggle room for making decisions on the margins with respect to services that escape the Commission’s general ban on zero-rated plans. It will base its judgements on whether or not to grant an exemption to such services when they offer exceptional public interest benefits, are open to any content, app or service provider, are ‘content agnostic’, have minimal to no impact on the interoperability of all of the internet’s interlocking parts, and are not based on payola schemes (paras 126-129).

Most notably, Canadian consumers and creators will benefit in the long-term from the net neutrality policies. The CRTC noted that the evidence showed that zero rating offers were typically limited to high-end plans, thereby doing little to increase affordability of wireless services. Moreover, the European experience indicates providers that do not zero rate offer better prices and larger data allowances.

The 'integrated' logic of the previous decade need not apply, while the explosion of digital technology in homes and businesses offers new opportunities managing the apps and gadgets that will run our lighting, heating, cars, telecommunications, entertainment and daily chores in the near future.

Meanwhile, a functioning electricity futures market now allows electricity retailers to contract ahead of time for large volumes of electricity without owning power stations.

A brace of scrappy competitors are doing so already and have nearly 10 per cent of the national market.

Add in the likelihood that solar photo-voltaic and localised wind generation could render the national grid redundant within a generation, and the logic becomes inescapable – traditional electricity retailers risk becoming like any industry facing massive disruption thanks to digital technology.

A company like Contact may not want to own power stations quite soon – just customer relationships with various kinds of energy-managing devices.

If this all sounds theoretical, consider that Contact's Tauranga-based rival TrustPower has already gone a big step in this direction.

Last year, it split its renewable electricity and consumer businesses, listing them separately on the NZX as Trustpower and Tilt Renewables.

It appears that there exist transport utilities that don’t have to be paid to do the obvious and split  the once vertically integrated layers of the sector as rate of change, complexity (AKA diversity) become the norm of their once vanilla worlds.

“My history has always been working with the insurgent, not the incumbent,” Wheeler told Ars in an interview at his Washington, DC, office. “I have always been the guy coming up the side of the hill, rather than the guy on the top of the hill pushing boulders down to stop them.”

I am cloaked in shame, in that I too thought Wheeler a sell out, himself and Obama for appointing him.  Instead he’s done more than anyone else to reassert the common carriage model and impose it on the contemporary transport service, the Internet.

Look at this!:

Wheeler’s FCC has (inter alia):

Reclassified fixed and mobile broadband as Title II common carrier services.

Used Title II authority to impose net neutrality rules that forbid blocking, throttling, and giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.

Decided that content providers and network operators should be able to file complaints against ISPs about rates charged for network interconnection.

Preempted state laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent the expansion of municipal broadband providers.

Raised the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps/3Mbps, a move that helps justify further regulatory actions designed to promote competition (such as the municipal broadband decision).

Refused to approve Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

Pressured Sprint to abandon a potential acquisition of T-Mobile.

Voted to create a software replacement for CableCard, forcing cable companies to make TV channels available to makers of third-party devices and software.

Proposed a $100 million fine against AT&T, saying the company throttled unlimited data plans without adequately notifying customers about reduced speeds. (AT&T is trying to lower or eliminate the penalty.)

Stepped up enforcement in general, with a $3.5 million fine against two small carriers that failed to protect the personal information of low-income customers; various fines against cellular carriers for bill cramming; a $40 million fine to TracFone for throttling and capping “unlimited” data; fines against hotel chains related to Wi-Fi blocking; and more.

Pressured wireless carriers into unlocking cell phones so they can be used on competitors’ networks.

Pressured Verizon Wireless into dropping a plan to throttle customers who pay for unlimited LTE data.

Imposed new rules against robocalling over the objections of a lobby group that represents Google, Netflix, and other Web companies.

Handed T-Mobile USA a victory in a fight against AT&T and Verizon Wireless over data roaming charges.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Seth Godin wrote a very interesting blog article regarding Net Neutrality and control of information on the Internet.  Seths comments were largely around being wary of limited access to information if it is controlled by only a few powerful domains.  The article struck me as having many historical precedents related to transportation and commerce dating back 150 years ago.

One of the key elements of Seths article was:

"We live in the connection economy, a world based on ideas. When a few corporate titans can control the flow of those ideas and the essence of that connection, we've given up far too much"

As part of its attempt to buy up Time Warner Cable, Charter is offering certain concessions that it hopes will defuse any regulator concerns about the deal being anti-competitive. A net neutrality commitment is just one of these — and Ammori says he helped write it.

"Charter is offering the strongest network neutrality commitments ever offered — in any merger or, to my knowledge, in any nation," Ammori wrote.

Within a few years of the FCC's Carterfone decision, America had become a motley world of funny receivers, slick switch boxes, and rickety answering machines. More importantly, consumers quickly embraced the "modulate/demodulate" device, otherwise known as the telephone modem. A 1999 FCC policy paper noted the significance and justly gave the agency credit for the proliferation of this application. "The Carterfone decision enabled consumers to purchase modems from countless sources," the agency concluded. "Without easy and inexpensive consumer access to modems, the Internet would not have become the global medium that it is today."

This years celebration is very apposite given that AT&T, it’s ilk, Comcast et al felt they were in the impunity trap, but suddenly Title II, the impossible was invoked and they were placed in a socially valuable non-discriminatory cage.  Oh, and look, the Comcast/TimeWarner merger got shafted too.