Wyden to FCC: ‘Step Up’ and Write Clear Neutrality Rules
Entrepreneurs may not be able to secure venture capital if the FCC doesn’t write clear rules for net neutrality, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told the Computer and Communications Industry Association’s Washington caucus Wednesday. One of two “high-tech defenders” on the Hill named in the association’s newly released tech scorecard, Wyden warned of “storm clouds ahead” for innovative new businesses. That’s due to the “lack of clear, enforceable standards” on neutrality, “and I don’t think the country can afford that in these difficult times,” he said, noting Oregon has the second highest unemployment among states. Wyden also urged telecom executives to be prepared to explain the local benefits of free trade to an increasingly hostile American public.
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Businesses should create jobs in “every nook and cranny of this country, and not just for the fortunate few” who are blessed by a network “middleman,” Wyden said. A developer of Internet-based health record management systems, which could create “new tributaries of industries” around the business, could be stymied by a network provider, for example, he said: Venture capitalists will shy away from startups at risk of getting relegated to a provider’s “slow lane.” The FCC did an “elaborate dance” around neutrality in its notice of inquiry for network management practices, and though Congress mentioned the FCC’s four freedoms in the recovery bill, the principles are “so inexact they have fostered more legal wrangling than innovation and investment,” Wyden said. The FCC needs to “step up” and write neutrality rules.
Asked how Congress can help the FCC with the authority that critics say it lacked to punish Comcast for its peer-to-peer throttling practices, Wyden said “the regulatory structure is clearly outdated.” Policymakers still “think inside the box” through a wireline-focused view of broadband expansion, when they should recognize that wireless is “viable,” he said. A representative of T-Mobile, who warned about the heightened bandwidth considerations of wireless, prompted Wyden to note his hands-off approach to Internet access taxation. “I have treaded pretty carefully” on tech regulation, but the U.S. is moving in a “dangerous direction” without strong neutrality rules, he said. “I keep trying to picture the small guys out with the venture [capital] people” without network nondiscrimination guarantees.
One of a handful of Democrats to vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Wyden warned executives “the American people clearly have changed their view” on the benefits of free trade. Telecom executives and others called Wyden to thank him for his vote, but invariably there was a “long pause on the other end of the phone” when Wyden suggested they give some money from their new tariff reductions to employees. “Expanding the winners’ circle” should be executives’ top talking point when they address local residents on trade, Wyden said.