FCC Backbone Study Hits the Mark

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. -- Will Durant

by Patricia Fusco
Associate Editor, ISP-Planet
[September 28, 2000]

The Federal Communications Commission recently released the Office of Plans and Policy's 32nd Working Paper examining peering and transit arrangements between Internet backbone providers.

Michael Kende, OPP director of Internet policy analysis, concluded that the Internet backbone market should remain free of telecommunication-like interconnection regulations.

In the 48-page report, Kende argues that backbone providers, governed only by antitrust laws and enforcement, would prevent any one firm from getting a stranglehold on the Internet through competitive forces at work in the marketplace.

He reasons that the Internet is a network of networks owned and operated by numerous companies that requires several parties to interconnect in order to work. Unlike the telecom industry — built on cost-prohibitive technologies that produced a single monopoly, inexpensive peering agreements freely exchange Internet traffic over backbones.

Where transport is required, short- and long-term transit agreements allow backbones to profit from selling bandwidth to independent Internet service providers that make up the outer edge of the Internet.

Due to the competitive nature of both peering and transit agreements, Kende concludes that neither requires federal regulations mandating interconnection at this time.

The report is called The Digital Handshake: Connecting Internet Backbones. If you own, operate, or work for an Internet service provider you will want to take a moment to review the study or its equivalent in PDF form.

The study is one of the best reports completed by the FCC and Kende should be commended. The report is well substantiated and provides an excellent backdrop for keeping the Internet as free of federal regulation as possible.

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