Insincerely Yours — The GOP & FCC

All the Anti-Net Neutrality Propaganda Fit to Print

Over the years since 2010, a large number of quarrelsome viewpoints have been expressed about net neutrality. Most recently, the three Republican FCC commissioners have expressed views against net neutrality and even successfully voted against Title II protections for net neutrality (as I talked about in my last article). Many media outlets associated with right-wing politics have been forcing a story of how net neutrality is a bad thing. They typically have titles which read:

A major fault in each of these articles is a lack of complete truth. Each article argues its point, ignoring the true dynamics of the system being legislated and how it is used. Each article deftly sidesteps what it means to be competitive. In many cases, the network itself is conflated with the service being offered over the network. The articles bow the strings of preconceptions and illiteracy latent in the populace. They do not provide facts and real education to empower individuals to properly think and reach conclusions.

Each of the above articles are a form of propaganda. Each is crafted to carefully shape misconceptions about the internet and how it works. Each is sculpted to make sure the conservative readership does not try to stop their own party from doing something against their own interest.

Let’s examine the first article. These seven points are actually the same points that were used by those in favor of the “Restoring Internet Freedom” put forth by Ajit Pai, Michael O’Rielly, & Brendan Carr. However, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, both dissented and used real world considerations in their dissent.

1) “‘Consumers would dump those ISPs in favor of others’ if those ISPs slowed down or blocked data as favoritism toward certain sites.”

In many places there is no choice for a local ISP, it’s either one of Comcast, Charter, CenturyLink, DIRECTV, or some choice of three cellular providers — but nothing else. If competition is needed, the Title II protections to increase access to right-of-way and collocate equipment with competitors would increase competition, because it would lower the barrier to entry. This new order decreases competition by raising the barrier to entry.

2) “Under Title II, the Internet is subject to a bevy of regulations at the whim of the FCC.”

This was all FUD-mongering. After the Open Internet Order, carriers announced to their investors that it wouldn’t impact them much. As stated above, Title II increased the ability of service providers to cooperate to provide services to a broader area.

New projects under Title II would most likely be approved as long as they adhere to same FCC regulations as usual. This process allows the oversight to make sure use of the network and existing network infrastructure is fair and equal to all. This “bevy of regulations” would have helped the FCC to know what projects were underway and extend grants to broadband projects.

3) “The FCC can also subject ISPs to a slew of taxes under Title II.”

Title II was written to regulate “Ma Bell” back when AT&T was a monopoly. It gave the FCC incredible latitude to slap fees on AT&T for bad practices. By default, there are no arbitrary taxes included and the Open Internet Order of 2015 specifically stated that it would cut down the regulations, tariffs, and other aspects that make Title II otherwise troublesome.

4) “The FCC also has the power to prevent ISPs from charging websites at rates they deem to be unfair and ends ‘paid priority.’” & “This adversely harms smaller ISPs, which rely on paid priority since they don’t have as much resources as bigger ISPs.”

Who ever wrote this bit of fiction ignores the reality on the ground. The backbone of the internet is mostly made of connections in fiber between Internet eXchange Points (IXPs). If an entity wants wide distribution or access to everywhere on the internet, an entity becomes a member of an IXP and pays a one time fee. After the network connections are established at the IXP, the entity needs to make sure they have the hardware for handling the bandwidth (the amount of traffic) and the costs for getting more customers connected to the entity’s network. Then there’s the cost of accidents, faulty equipment, and eventual obsolescence. Most of this is minimal. Comcast was able to generate over 8 billion in revenue and gave 7.6 billion of that back to shareholders. If they made that much with net neutrality and gave it back to shareholders, why are they complaining?

Without net neutrality, small ISPs may have to pay those premiums because otherwise the upstream network provider they use has no incentive to route their traffic without the fees. Why? Because the larger network provider wants more money and has a conflict of interest in wanting to take over the smaller provider’s customer base. Under net neutrality, those charges disappear and the smaller carriers traffic is handled the same way as the larger provider because of the protections provided. If the smaller provider wants to expand, it can use other companies’ negotiated right-of-way to do so under Title II.

The biggest debacle of paid priority occurred when Comcast decided to charge Netflix an interconnection fee back in 2014 in order to ensure their connection through the ISP to their customers wasn’t throttled. Comcast argued the additional traffic degraded the network for their customers. They had no problems keeping up with Netflix demand until November of 2013, when they decided to throttle Netflix. After Netflix paid, speeds returned to normal. Did Comcast use that additional money to invest in new infrastructure? Maybe. Capital expenditures in their earnings reports show they increased expenditures in 4Q2013, cut back 5% in 1Q2014 and then started spending more each quarter afterward. However, before the end of 1Q2014, Netflix signed the deal with Comcast and their bandwidth shot straight back up to the previous levels. This is indicative of Comcast manipulating their traffic in order to extract more money to keep shareholder dividend payouts high.

5) “In other words, with the FCC controlling the ISP market they can and will use their power to coerce them into providing content that’s more toward their liking.”

This is an outright lie. Under net neutrality and the law as writ, they could not do this. It would be breaking the law. Whatever contract between an entity and the carrier exists is what the entity gets, the FCC would have ensured that.

6) “It’s crony capitalism in favor of web giants like Facebook and Google. That’s why they support net neutrality, since it targets their competitors.”

Facebook and Google have a vested interest in keeping a vibrant and open internet. Facebook actually has open infrastructure projects going on around the world. The people with the open source hardware running their networks may even have better internet connectivity than anyone will here in the states. Google needs unfettered access to all websites and hyperlinks in order to index them and provide their search engine service. Since Google is more than just a search engine, they have too many interests which conflict with a closed internet. Google also has Vint Cerf, known as the Father of the Internet and co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, as their Chief Internet Evangelist.

7) “The better way to ensure net neutrality is to breathe more capitalism into the ISP market rather than government control.”

Networks evolve into things like natural monopolies when they are allowed to grow in an unbounded manner. The market shares form a Tracy-Widom distribution. This in not exactly a monopoly or winner takes all dynamics, but it is still problematic. It is why Comcast and CenturyLink are huge companies and are still growing. CenturyLink bought Level 3 Communications — which is troubling. It means that ISPs are vying to own more and more of the underlying networks and ownership in the internet. Microsoft announced Azure ExpressRoute which extends your network into their cloud using only private connections; it doesn’t traverse over the internet, even though it uses all the same technology and some of the connections are even collocated with existing service providers.

Besides these meddlesome details, we must talk about utility pole attachments and right-of-way costs. The agreements for these costs with Kansas City and other municipalities made with Google were very favorable, because the city valued getting a full fiber optic network. Google has no shortage in cash, but still thought many of the fees municipalities charge are too high. Municipalities do charge a very high price in order to get right of way, but maybe Google convincing them a lower price is needed is part of those free market forces.

It’s inconsolably unfortunate one’s own party would pull the wool over their own constituents’ eyes. We are in the middle of a propaganda war and anything goes. May we be ever vigilant and learn to both understand what this manipulation looks like and how to not be twisted by it.