Cable's Top Lobbyist Declares Net Neutrality 'Irrelevant'

Former FCC boss turned top lobbyist for the cable industry Michael Powell thinks the quest for a healthy, open internet is "irrelevant." Powell informed attendees of an industry conference in Ireland this week that he believes the network neutrality debate sucks up money, resources and "mindshare," but is increasingly an "irrelevant" discussion. Powell spent most of the speech downplaying concerns over cable's growing power, and amplifying his belief that it's Silicon Valley companies like Google that should be getting more scrutiny.

Said scrutiny comes as the companies that back Powell are increasingly trying to compete with those same companies for media and advertising attention.

"Net neutrality policy does not remotely address the issues companies and consumers are facing today and likely will face in the future," Powell said. "Put simply, net neutrality is deeply rooted in engineering, consumer expectations, corporate business models and the norms of internet activity. It is firmly entrenched, and I don’t believe the open internet experience will change, whatever the outcome of the current debate."

That's wishful thinking. If ISPs are successful at their current attempt to gut FTC, FCC and state oversight of natural monopolies, the end result won't be pretty. Anybody that believes otherwise either has a stake in the game (Powell), or hasn't paid attention to history. The lack of meaningful competition or government oversight always results in higher prices, worse service, and a litany of additional issues (in this case ranging from net neutrality violations to privacy abuses).

Powell spent most of his speech urging regulators saddle Comcast competitors with regulation while leaving Comcast free to do as it pleases.

"For years, big tech companies have been extinguishing competitive threats by buying or crushing promising new technologies just as they were emerging," he said. "They dominate their core business, and rarely have to foreclose competition by buying their peers."

While companies like Google and Facebook certainly have their own, unique problems, you'll note that in Powell's world, Comcast is an innocent daisy. ISP execs and lobbyists also have a nasty habit of trying to ignore the fact that many of the problems in telecom come from a lack of last-mile competition, leaving customers with no alternatives to flee to when cablecos or telcos engage in anti-competitive behavior. That's not the case with content, where users can choose not to use Facebook if they take issue with its business practices.

Again: the goal here is to convince regulators to hyper-regulate ISP competitors, but let incumbent ISPs facing no competitive pressure to do whatever they'd like. Of course, given Powell has been denying a lack of competition in broadband is a problem for the better part of the last decade, none of the lobbyist's latest hot takes should be particularly suprising.