Public Interest Groups On Open Internet Policy

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The policy brief discusses about the FCC’s Open Internet policy from the prospective of Public Interest Group. The policy brief explains about the FCC’s implementation of the Open Internet rules to maintain the growth and development of the Internet without compromising with its openness [3]. The Open Internet policy provides a framework to preserve the openness of Internet by regulating the rules on transparency, no blocking, and no discrimination [3]. Internet has developed into a major source of communication by providing a powerful platform for innovation and economic growth to all the groups involved [3]. The FCC encounters various challenges from the broadband service providers (Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T) to maintain Internet’s openness as they have restricted the Internet’s openness by discriminating or blocking network traffic without disclosing to the customers and edge providers [2]. In the following, Policy brief, as a member of the Public Interest Group, we will discuss the advantages of the Open Internet policy and the effects it has upon other groups along with an overview about the FCC’s Open Internet Policy.

Background

Introduction

The Internet has tremendously affected many aspects of our daily lives. It is the networks of the networks and has revolutionized  way we communicate. The Internet growth has proliferated mainly because of its open structure, allowing anyone to use its services and deploy their services on it. Open nature of the Internet has made it possible for anyone to communicate to anyone and easily launch services and applications on it without requiring any approval for others [2]. Internet has been an important source of communication in the current world and plays an important role in the economy, as an engine for productivity growth and cost saving. [1].

FCC’s Open Internet Policy provides a framework to maintain the freedom and integrity of the internet. The purpose of the policy is to ensure that Internet remains an open platform and maintain transparency in its functionality. Public interest group is an organization that works to attain social welfare [2]. The Public Interest Groups have come together in the support of the FCC’s decision on preserving the Open Internet as this would help conserving the consumer interest and innovation of the Internet [6]. In the paper, we would discuss about the FCC’s Open Internet Policy, Public Interest Group’s approach, position of the other groups, benefits of the policy, and the impact of policy on the market growth.

FCC Open Internet Policy

In 2005, the FCC announced the regulatory obligations for the broadband service providers that required providing its consumers with certain rights and expectations such as [3]:-

Access to any lawful content by the consumers.

Utilization of lawful applications and services on the Internet.

Usage of any legal devices that do not harm the network

Enhance competition among the service and application providers, benefitting the consumers and enhancing the competition.

The lack of any strict regulatory measures on the Internet services allowed the broadband providers to endanger the Internet’s openness, by blocking or degrading content and applications without disclosing their practices to the end users, content providers, and application providers. Broadband providers ignored the FCC’s adoption of the open Internet principles, and performed practices that benefited them [2]. Some Broadband providers also gave extra preference to the data traffic of some application users over others [2].

This required the FCC to formulate set of rules to preserve the Internet’s openness, and a procedure for resolving alleged open Internet violations [2]. As a result, on 21 December 2010, the Commission adopted the Open Internet Policy that establishes three high-level rules to preserve the free and open internet. The three rules adopted by the FCC are [2]:-

Transparency [2]: - It stated that the broadband providers are required to disclose accurate information regarding the network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access services to the consumers. The broadband providers should provide full information about the practices performed by them that affects the consumers.

No Blocking [2]: - The broadband providers are not allowed to block any lawful content, applications, services, and non-harmful services. The mobile broadband may not block lawful websites, or applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services. Consumer should have an access to all lawful content without any blocking of the Internet services.

No Discrimination [2]: - The broadband providers are not allowed to discriminate the Internet traffic flowing over the consumer’s broadband Internet access service. The broadband provider cannot degrade the service or make its competitor services slower on its own network.

Open Internet Policy has been adopted by the FCC to promote further growth of internet, by providing an open, robust, and well-functioning Internet. [3].

Public Interest Group (Point of View):-

Public interests groups represent people or organization that works upon the issues important to general public and advocate their views on behalf of the society [4]. As a representative of public interest group, we advocate the FCC’s open interest policy and provide my views on preserving open Internet. Internet openness needs to be preserved as Internet is the most democratic medium this country, and the world, has ever known as it provides a platform for individuals and society to express their views and thoughts on a worldwide communication platform [5]. FCC’s Open Internet creates more job opportunities, and enhances the economic growth as new businesses and innovations could be applied to the open structured Internet [5]. The Open Internet also increases diversity of opinion and thoughts, and ensure that the consumers and entrepreneurs can engage in the benefit from the Open structure of the Internet [5].

Many public interest groups have united in support of the FCC to continue their efforts of framing policies that would preserve the open Internet [6]. The Public Interest Groups had written a letter to the Chairman of FCC, expressing strong support to the FCC’s open Internet policy and continue Internet’s unprecedented surge in creativity, innovation, and civic discourse [6]. The open Internet has generated billions of dollars in investment, by network operators and Web-based companies, opening up new opportunities for consumers while creating thousands of jobs and empowering the economic growth [6].

The Open Internet Policy on one side, benefit the consumer from a transparent and non-discriminatory networks with more access to a variety of broadband service applications, but on the other hand, internet service providers will not get the incentives that they were being offered by broadband service applications to discriminate and block the traffic without informing their end users [6]. Thus, it is important that we stop the unreasonable discrimination that would harm the open and free nature of the Internet and FCC’s Open Internet Policy provides non- discriminatory Internet services [2].

Public Interest Groups have always stood against the injustice inflicted by the broadband providers and complained to the FCC about their misdoings. In the recent past, public interest groups have complaint to the FCC against Comcast for blocking the peer to peer service for its customers without informing them and AT&T for blocking FaceTime for its mobile users [9]. Public Interest Group has always backed the Internet’s Openness, and urges the FCC to provide a strong framework for the Open Internet Policy that would help in the country’s development.

Policy Option

Policy Critique

The purpose of the Open Internet Order is to create a framework that aims to ensure the Internet will remain an open platform, characterized by open markets and free speech [2]. The policy rule comprises to provide consumer choice, end-user control, competition through low barriers to entry, and the freedom to innovate without permission [2]. The rules aim to provide Internet Openness by providing greater certainty to consumers, innovators, investors, and flexibility to the providers to effectively manage their networks [2]. The Open Internet policy rules apply to broadband Internet and mobile broadband access services [2]. The FCC has decided to apply only the transparency rule and part of the no blocking rule to providers of mobile broadband as it is still in earlier stage of development [2].

The three basic rules adopted by the FCC are Transparency, No Blocking and No Discrimination that provide greater clarity and certainty regarding the continued freedom and openness of the Internet [2]. Addition of reasonable network management, the whole summation of the rules provides consumers and innovators ample opportunities while ensuring that Internet continues to flourish [2]. The important rules of the Open Internet Policy are explained below [2]:-

Transparency [2]: - Under this rule the FCC stated to provide transparency or clarity of the network management activities followed by the broadband providers to their customers. This rule applies to both mobile and fixed broadband Internet providers. The broadband service providers are required to provide information about the performance and commercial activities performed by them on their network informing the consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings. However, the broadband providers should not disclose any sensitive information that involves their network security. This rule may provide the broadband providers to perform more processing and analyzing of information that will cost more, and burden on them.

No Blocking [2]: - Under this the FCC stated that the broadband Internet service provider shall not block any lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices used by the consumers and application providers. The broadband providers cannot restrict its consumers and application providers from any lawful network usage without informing them, and are only allowed to block the service if it provides a danger to their network. This rule also removes the favoring of one application or content provider over other, by blocking one’s services. This rule applies to both fixed and mobile service providers.

No Discrimination [2]: - Under this rule the broadband Internet service provider shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet service as this can harm innovation, competition, and free expressions. The broadband provider cannot discriminate between the data traffic flowing through its network and no additional benefits shall be provided to one service over the other. The broadband provider also cannot provide low grade service to its competitor services using its network. This rule only applies to the fixed broadband provider, not on the mobile broadband providers.

Reasonable Network Management [2]:- Another important aspect to preserve the openness of the internet is achieved by performing appropriate and tailored network management practice. The broadband providers need to involve flexibility while performing their reasonable network management practices in order to preserve an open, robust, and well-functioning.

Point of View of Other Groups:-

Broadband Internet Service Providers: The broadband Internet service providers are against the FCC’s Open Internet Policy and claims that it is against the first amendment right to stop them from editing, prioritize, or block its customer’s access to internet [7]. In Verizon vs. the FCC case, Verizon claims to exhibit right to block, discriminate and manage the network traffic according to its choice as it is a part of the First Amendment right [7]. The broadband Internet providers disagrees the openness of the Internet, and consider blocking content and applications without disclosing their practices to end users and edge providers as their constitutional right [7]. One such practice was performed by Comcast by blocking the peer to peer BitTorrent application without informing the end users and challenging the Internet’s Openness [9].

Mobile Broadband Providers: Mobile broadband being in its initial stage of development is treated differently from broadband providers [8]. They are given some relaxation by the FCC in the Open Internet Policy as spectrum management is different for mobile providers as the spectrum is limited and network congestion is huge problem [8]. The mobile broadband users are not allowed to block any lawful websites or applications that compete against their voice services [8].

Broadband Application Providers: A broadband application provider supports the FCC’s Open Internet policy as it enhances the competition in the market and forbids the companies to follow unfair pricing mechanisms [8]. The Open Internet policy provides equality opportunity and benefits to the application providers [8].We believe that an open Internet system derives innovation and open up more economic growth possibilities [8]. The Open Internet Policy also helps new application providers to adapt and compete in the market against existing application providers as the broadband service providers would not be able discriminate the traffic [8].

Federal Communications Commission: FCC has created the Open Internet policy to maintain the Openness of the Internet, by allowing consumers, innovators, and application providers to use the Internet according to their requirements [2]. The FCC’s objective is to prevent the broadband providers from restricting innovation and competition in the market [2]. It has framed the Open Internet policy to ensure the availability of an open and robust high-speed Internet service to every American, and help the Internet to expand its services without any interference [3].

Recommendations

The following are the recommendations provided to the Congress and subcommittee for further preserving the openness of Internet:-

The FCC should implement more stringent rules and punishments as the current Open Internet policy has some loopholes related to the First Amendment [7]. For example, in the case Verizon vs. the FCC, Verizon argued against the FCC’s Open Internet policy as it is its right to block, discriminate and manage network traffic according to its choice [7].

The FCC should be given more authority by the congress to implement and govern the Internet resources more efficiently.

The FCC should form a working committee comprising of all the groups to discuss and maintain the open standard of the Internet. This committee would discuss about proper implementation of the rules and its impact on all the groups.

A special provision should be formulated in the court to accelerate and handle the court cases associated with the Open Internet Policy differently than other cases.

The FCC should formulate a specific group under the Open Internet policy to conduct timely official survey’s asking the end users and providers about Internet services received by them, and constantly monitor the activities performed by the broadband service providers.