Monthly Archives: October 2014

Title II Reclassification and the Price Regulation of Retail Broadband Services…

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Last month, Larry Spiwak and I published a paper entitled Tariffing the Internet: Pricing Implications of Classifying Broadband as a Title II Telecommunications Service in which we outlined how the reclassification of broadband as a Title II telecommunications service would work in practice. (See Larry’s Op-Ed for a condensed version.) Since net neutrality seems aimed at prohibiting “paid prioritization,” we concluded that reclassification must lead to a positively-priced and tariffed termination service. That is, edge providers will be required to pay broadband providers to terminate their traffic. Today, they do not. No one has yet to make any reasonable argument Continue Reading »

The Problems With Henry Waxman’s “Hybrid” Legal Theory…

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Last week, Representative Henry Waxman—the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee—wrote a letter to Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler where he proposed a new and quite peculiar “hybrid” legal theory to support aggressive new Open Internet Rules.  Under Mr. Waxman’s three-step theory, the FCC would first reclassify broadband Internet access as a Title II common carrier telecommunications service.  Next, Mr. Waxman would have the Commission use its authority under Section 10 to forbear from nearly all of Title II—including even Section 201 (requiring “just and reasonable” rates) and Section 202 (prohibiting “unreasonable discrimination”). Finally, having dispensed Continue Reading »

Tariffing the Internet: A Response to Harold Feld…

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Last month, Larry Spiwak and I released a paper entitled Tariffing the Internet: Pricing Implications of Classifying Broadband as a Title II Telecommunications Service. In this paper (and companion op-ed), we set out to answer a critical question—how exactly does reclassifying broadband as a Title II, common-carrier telecommunications service protect the Open Internet?  Despite the millions of comments filed in the FCC’s Open Internet Docket, this most basic question has yet to be asked much less answered.  If the Commission does reclassify, then the agency must design, implement and administer a particular set of rules that achieves the desired goal Continue Reading »

An Epiphany at Free Press on Reclassification?

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Yesterday, the Phoenix Center held a Teleforum to present our paper Tariffing the Internet: Pricing Implications of Classifying Broadband as a Title II Telecommunications Service and to discuss its implications with a series of experts. (We hope to post the video of the event on the Phoenix Center’s Phoenix Center’s YouTube Channel shortly.)  To summarize the paper, we show that if the Federal Communications Commission uses Title II common carrier telecommunications regulations to protect the “Open Internet,” then all edge providers (e.g., Google, Netflix, and your personal website) will be required to make direct payments to Broadband Service Providers (“BSPs” Continue Reading »