Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner, on net neutrality Ex-commissioner says people know what's at stake

Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps is a fierce advocate of net neutrality and opposes more media consolidation. Former FCC commissioner Michael Copps is a fierce advocate of net neutrality and opposes more media consolidation. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner, on net neutrality 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The public has blistered the Federal Communications Commission with a record 780,000 responses to its proposal that Internet service providers no longer be required to treat all online traffic equally.

But does the onslaught - more than the agency has received for any proposed rule change - even matter to the five commissioners who are expected to consider it later this year?

"I can tell you that I didn't go read all 3 million of those messages, but I knew they were there," former Commissioner Michael Copps said during a visit to San Francisco this week, referring to a similar deluge that were sent to the FCC, Congress and elsewhere in Washington when the commission considered loosening media ownership rules a decade ago. "But did they make an impact? You bet they made an impact. There was no question about it."

Much of this round of feedback is from critics who say that gutting the net neutrality provision would create a two-tiered Internet where people and companies who could afford a stronger broadband connection could drive in the digital fast lane.

This feedback storm was so intense - at least by the FCC's normally sleepy standards - that the agency extended its deadline to sound off until Friday. And that made Copps smile.

Copps, who served on the commission from 2001 to 2011, has long been a fierce advocate for preserving net neutrality and an opponent of further media consolidation. These days, the 74-year-old is advising the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause on its "media and democracy reform initiative."

Here are tidbits from his visit to The Chronicle, when Copps riffed on how disappointed he is in President Obama and how he thinks the proposed Comcast takeover of Time Warner should have been "dead on arrival" before it hit the FCC:

On whether he thinks the FCC will preserve net neutrality:

"You cannot answer that question right now. It depends on what they hear from grassroots America," Copps said. "We still have a long way to go. I'm not here to declare any victory has been won ... but I am encouraged.

"What encourages me is that now people seem to understand what the stakes are."

On Obama and net neutrality:

When he was running for president, Obama said, "I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality." But once in office, Obama appointed Tom Wheeler, a former telecommunications industry lobbyist who crafted the proposed rules that would essentially ruin net neutrality by creating a system that is friendlier to the big telecommunications companies.

Obama "seems to be in the back seat now," Copps said. "He may be in the rumble seat of the old Model-T. I don't know where he is."

On how Obama squandered his chance for real media reform after he was elected in 2008:

"I think the country was in the mood for more reform at that time," Copps said. "I don't underestimate the challenges that President-elect Obama faced when he came in. He couldn't fix everything. But I think the American people were in favor of more reform than what we got. I think we missed a wonderful opportunity. I think there's nothing more important, in my mind, that you have a communications infrastructure that allows for the expression of popular will."

On Comcast's proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc.:

In 2010, Copps was the only commissioner to vote against Comcast's purchase of NBC-Universal. Copps would spike the new Comcast deal, too.

"This deal should be dead on arrival. We have no business doing this after Comcast 1," Copps said. "To take this footprint that Comcast has developed over so much of the rest of the United States and impose it on so many other subscribers and so many other areas ... is totally inimical to the public interest. I don't see any conditions that would be ameliorative of that, that would make it acceptable to the public interest."