[ NNSquad ] Re: "Regulating" the Internet -- and Distinctions

[Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com>]

At 09:10 AM 9/11/2008, Phil Karn wrote:

> I wish articles like this wouldn't talk about "Regulating the
> Internet". The issue is very clearly about regulating the monopoly at
> the physical layer in the retail residential market. That means the
> transmission facilities individuals and small businesses use to ACCESS
> the Internet.

This is not correct. The FCC's order regarding Comcast regulated 
not the physical layer but network management practices on ALL 
layers, from physical to application.

> But as often happens in a completely unregulated market, the Internet
> has created some very serious and destructive monopolies.

I agree. Google's 80% market share constitutes a monopoly. So does the
ILECs' stranglehold on backhaul facilities used by all providers to
reach the Internet.

> Ironically
> these are the very same entities who had little or nothing to do with
> the Internet's development, who either ignored it or tried to kill it
> in its infancy, but who jumped in and seized control as soon as there
> was a lot of money to be made from it.

Google does not fall into this category, but the ILECs do. It's worth
noting, though, that the essencial facilities they control are not used
solely for Internet access. Cellular providers have also complained,
justifiably, that backhaul for their cell towers has been subject to
anticompetitive pricing.

The FCC and Congress have been persuaded to shelve this issue by the
name it's been given by the ILECs: "special access." But in fact, there
is nothing "special" about wholesale access to essential facilities. It
is fundamental to competition.

--Brett Glass