The Freedom To Connect

The Freedom To Connect conference opened with a speech from an FCC Commissioner followed by a speech by the conference's founder, both addressing the same topic: the future of the internet.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 4, 2006]

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps had to catch a plane, but stopped by the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference in Silver Spring, Maryland to raise some fundamental concerns.

"This conference is timely," said Copps as he opened the conference on Monday morning. "If we are not careful, we will miss threats to the openness that makes the internet so great."

Copps proceeded to list the many threats to internet openness. "Broadband toll bridges could restrict access to voice, video or music."

"The increasing concentration of facility providers may allow some to influence who can use the internet. At times I'm asked if the net is dying. Cable and telecommunications providers compete but together control about 98 percent of broadband. Wireless and broadband over power line (BPL) are exciting but are not present enough to provide competition."

"History shows that when firms have the technology and the sway, they will use it."

Look not to the FCC
Copps warned that it is not the FCC's role to solve these problems. The FCC follows the instructions of Congress. He said that the next act of the broadband drama would be authored in Congress, not at the FCC.

The next act in the drama will determine whether the United States rises back up the broadband rankings or falls farther behind. "I don't have all the answers or even mean to suggest that I have raised all the questions," Copps said, "but I am concerned, very concerned."

He concluded with a message of possible hope. He noted that there are some similarities between concerns about net neutrality and concerns about media consolidation.

If Americans can be made to see that this is more than a technological issue, that it's about the well being of consumers, about U.S. innovation, about liberating technology—that it's about a better America—then there is hope.

Isenberg is fundamental
The conference's founder, David Isenberg, followed immediately, aiming to take up where Copps had finished and frame the broad terms of the debate.

"Net neutrality is like elections," Isenberg said. "The goal of elections is to create government by and for the people; the goal of net neutrality is to allow people to access content without apparent restrictions. The stakes in elections are so high that violating the rules is sometimes worth the risk."

The same, of course, is true with respect to the rules of the internet. Since the rules of the internet, like elections, can determine our future, bad actors will gain every illicit advantage they are capable of discovering.

Isenberg asked what punishment can be meted out to violators. He did not have an answer.

The ideal might be real competition, but that is not the only path to internet freedom, he noted.

"We could remove barriers to competition like licensed spectrum, ambiguous 911 requirements, and the USF. We could allow municipal networks. We could eliminate layer zero barriers to entry like pole attachments."

"We could have a benevolent dictatorship, putting layers zero through three into a public trust. On the other hand, the new boss might be much worse than the old boss—and we would be entirely dependent on the wisdom of the new boss."

Anarchy might be a path to internet freedom. There might be other paths to internet freedom.

But whatever the means to the goal, the goal remains clear.

"Let's keep our eyes on the prize: internet freedom, not net neutrality. Net neutrality is a means to an end."

The goal is the freedom to connect, to communicate, to innovate, to keep doing those cool internet things that nobody designed, anticipated, or architected.

— End