A handful of companies vs. the public interest

Part II of our discussion with Jeff Chester addresses the self-serving interests of broadband providers weighed against public-interest benefits of network neutrality.

Cable and telephone companies claim that, since they made the expenditures to build the broadband infrastructure, they are entitled to manage their network however they see fit and should not be constricted by net neutrality regulations. Sounds reasonable, right? Jeff Chester doesn’t think so. “It’s an absurd argument because all the money that they have put in has been paid for by rate payers and the phone and cable companies have gotten huge subsidies over the years,” Chester said.

They have been able to run their lines over public lands. They have been able to develop, in essence, de facto monopoly businesses. The idea that they should be able to impose a discriminatory business model in order to ensure a favorable return on investment: It’s totally self-serving.

For Chester it boils down to one core question: “Is broadband going to be a [public] utility or a kind of private digital fiefdom?” It seems clear that cable and phone companies want to extend their old business models into the new digital era. With a 98 percent lock on the broadband market, they intend to use it by charging extra fees for varying levels of delivery, according to Chester. He also explained that broadband providers all but killed community broadband and community Wi-Fi endeavors because they didn’t want to see any competition at all.

Fighting for broadband “open access” (earlier terminology for net neutrality) since the late 1990s, Chester and his cohorts wanted a similar formula for competition as had evolved for dial-up Internet with many different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) competing, including small, minority and noncommercial ISPs. “If you had a competitive broadband system you would be able to generate many more alternatives that could address the digital divide issue,” said Chester. He looks to the future and is concerned with how we can ensure that the medium evolves so it reflects democratic aspirations. However, he recognizes that phone and cable companies have taken a long view as well, pointing out that they will implement their business model very slowly over the long-term. “They’re going to work on this over time to get what they want,” said Chester.

Chester points out the danger of broadband providers having the ability to slow or block content they find objectionable:

Without network neutrality it’s possible that critical dissenting points of view would be placed on a kind of slow lane depriving the American public of ready access to the information it needs so that it can make decisions about the country’s welfare, let alone their community and family.

It comes down to the questions of what dominates and what is placed in the foreground. Chester thinks net neutrality is part of the answer, but adds that “other policies will likely be needed to make sure that…civic information, news and public affairs [are] not placed in the digital shadows.” Broadband should be similar to a public utility and operated on behalf of the public, Chester said. However, he added that, “if we’re living in a system where, for the short term, the phone and cable companies will dominate…what we should do is simply have rules in place that…require an open network from the monopoly or duopoly players.”

References

Woerner, P. (2007). Phone Interview with Jeff Chester. Conducted on October 20, 2007 for http://pwmedia.blogspot.com/