Net Neutrality Supporters Reject Verizon’s Challenge, Argue for More FCC Jurisdiction

Crawford criticized Verizon’s challenge to the open Internet order on First Amendment grounds. Verizon’s free-speech argument is “astonishing and laughable,” she said -- an attempt to “constitutionalize” Internet networks. Verizon wants to move the power from the delegated branch -- the courts -- and make sure there’s “a very tall constitutional roadblock” to remove any threat to Internet broadband regulation, she said: Then the telco will “pivot” and say “you can’t possibly defer” to what the administrative agency has done, given the constitutional issues. “Fifty years ago those same arguments were made by segregationists,” saying their lunch counters were being used to subsidize sit-ins, Crawford said: “A transport network is not subsidizing the speech that’s traveling over it.” Verizon declined to respond.

The FCC has had to jump through hoops to show it has jurisdiction over the Internet because it decided to classify broadband as an information service, said Angie Kronenberg, Comptel general counsel and former aide to then-Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The commission now “has to tie each other up in knots” to protect consumers on Internet services, she said. The commission’s lack of clarity -- such as not defining what exactly interconnected VoIP is -- continues to be a problem, she said, with unintended consequences such as the Enforcement Bureau saying it can’t handle slamming cases where a consumer’s voice service is switched to an IP service without permission.

If the court strikes down the order, the commission could reclassify broadband as a Title II service, Kronenberg said -- then it would have all the authority it needs. “It could even price regulate if it wanted to,” she said. The commission could also classify broadband transmission under Title II and make it available on a wholesale basis to competitors, to create “a more competitive vibrant market,” said Kronenberg. But that would all be “very politically difficult inside the Beltway,” she said.

Net neutrality isn’t about regulating the Internet, said Matt Wood, Free Press policy director. It’s just about ensuring that people paid to ship things can’t mess with what they're shipping, he said. Some argue that the fact that there have been no complaints show that the rules have “kept the lid” on the worst ISP gatekeeping abuses, he said. But they haven’t constrained every bit of bad behavior, he said, such as AT&T’s restricting FaceTime last summer. For Wood, the order didn’t go far enough. “We need the FCC to make sure we have a competitive playing field,” so constituencies and communities have access to a world-class network, he said: The FCC will get sued no matter what it does -- “at least get sued for the right thing.”

"Today’s panel tried to sound the alarm over net neutrality, but there doesn’t appear to be anything to be alarmed about,” said Fred Campbell, director of the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a foe of the net neutrality order. “Consumers are enjoying the fastest communications networks the world has ever known and competition is thriving with new entrants like Google Fiber,” said Campbell, not at the event, in an email later to us. “We would be better served by focusing on other issues like the transition to all-IP networks, the incentive auction, and universal service reform.”