Net founder Vint Cerf calls telecom act a failure

In an interview with Information Week’s Mitch Wagner Internet founding father Vint Cerf makes it clear that we need more competition, and that the telecom act as enforced did not deliver this.

“What we have is not very much competition, and at best two competitors,” Cerf said. “Two competitors don’t produce the pressure of true competition.”

Given the lack of alternatives, consumers have no choice when Internet service providers block some applications (for example, Comcast and other ISPs allegedly blocking BitTorrent). ISPs will likely try to filter traffic further, blocking access to specific applications and companies to increase their own profits. And the U.S. is lagging behind other countries, notably France, the U.K., New Zealand, and the Netherlands, in broadband penetration, Cerf said.

“All of this is telling me that we didn’t get it right” when the Telecommunication Act of 1996 was adopted, Cerf said. “When we wrote it, the Internet was barely visible to the public, and probably completely invisible to Congress.” The Web itself had just started becoming popular two years earlier, Cerf said. “Maybe we should step back and ask ourselves how to do this better,” he said.

The Internet is more like they highway system than it is like the phone or cable TV system. Phones and cable TV are networks that were purpose-built for individual applications — voice and TV, respectively. The Internet is built for any application and information that you can digitize, just like roads are built for any wheeled vehicle, Cerf said.

“Maybe we should treat the Internet more like the road system, look for ways of creating incentives to make the Internet more accessible to everyone, and less likely to be abused by the private sector,” Cerf said. (Informatuion Week)

I take exception that the act in and of itself was a failure. It was not originally conceived and written for the Internet, but in the days of dial up, it worked. When dial up was the most common mode of access, competition was fierce and robust. We need to take a careful look at what made that possible. The incumbents with the right of ways were required to carry the traffic at a regulated rate even though it was just piggybacking on a copper connection designed for voice. When broadband access became dominant, the FCC allowed carriers to push competitors off of their networks in order to “re-coop their investments”. Restoring a must carry requirement until there are maybe 5 or 6 fixed line connections to a premises just plain makes sense. This model is working in France, Japan and Korea where broadband costs are low and speeds are high -  and providers are very profitable.

Cerf’s comments will likely be used by many to make the case for a federal takeover of the internet. I don’t think that’s what he has in mind. Before we hand over our internet to the feds like the interstate highway system, it’s important to remember a few facts. The highway system took far longer to build than it should have, cost far more than it should have, and is poorly maintained even though the taxes collected for it maintenance far exceed what is actually spent on maintenance (while pols demand we pay more!)

If you think things are bad now, imagine an interstate highway style net where you’ll have to pony up more for less, tolerate endless closures for maintenance, and lag even farther behind the rest of the world with no alternative. I think it’s far better to admit that the market is not open to competition, and remedy that problem instead.