[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE OF THE INTERNET
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 25, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-12
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman Emeritus Ranking Member
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
GREG WALDEN, Oregon GENE GREEN, Texas
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas LOIS CAPPS, California
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
Vice Chairman JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio DORIS O. MATSUI, California
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington KATHY CASTOR, Florida
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey JERRY McNERNEY, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky PETER WELCH, Vermont
PETE OLSON, Texas BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia PAUL TONKO, New York
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL JOHNSON, Missouri JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
BILLY LONG, Missouri Massachusetts
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina TONY CARDENAS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
BILL FLORES, Texas
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
Chairman
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio ANNA G. ESHOO, California
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
PETE OLSON, Texas BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BILL JOHNSON, Missouri JERRY McNERNEY, California
BILLY LONG, Missouri BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
CHRIS COLLINS, New York officio)
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JOE BARTON, Texas
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, opening statement...................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 4
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 8
Witnesses
Rick Boucher, Honorary Chairman, Internet Innovation Alliance.... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Answers to submitted questions............................... 89
Gene Kimmelman, President and CEO, Public Knowledge.............. 16
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Robert Atkinson, Founder and President, The Information
Technology & Innovation Foundation............................. 26
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Answers to submitted questions............................... 92
Larry Downes, Project Director, Georgetown Center for Business
and Public Policy.............................................. 41
Prepared statement \1\....................................... 44
Answers to submitted questions............................... 97
Submitted Material
Letters and editorials \2\, submitted by Mr. Walden.............. 59
Letter of February 18, 2015, from small, independent businesses
and entrepreneurs to the Federal Communications Commission,
submitted by Ms. Eshoo......................................... 81
Statement of Etsy CEO, submitted by Ms. Eshoo.................... 84
Letter of February 25, 2015, from the Internet Freedom Business
Alliance to the Committee, submitted by Ms. Eshoo.............. 87
----------
\1\ The attachments to Mr. Downes' testimony can be found at
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if16/20150225/103018/hhrg-
114-if16-wstate-downesl-20150225.pdf.
\2\ The information can be found at http://docs.house.gov/
meetings/if/if16/20150225/103018/hhrg-114-if16-20150225-
sd009.pdf.
THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE OF THE INTERNET
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:33 a.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg
Walden (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Walden, Latta, Barton,
Shimkus, Blackburn, Scalise, Lance, Guthrie, Olson, Kinzinger,
Bilirakis, Johnson, Collins, Cramer, Upton (ex officio), Eshoo,
Doyle, Yarmuth, Clarke, Loebsack, Rush, DeGette, Matsui, Lujan,
and Pallone (ex officio).
Staff present: Gary Andres, Staff Director; Ray Baum,
Senior Policy Advisor for Communications and Technology;
Leighton Brown, Press Assistant; Andy Duberstein, Deputy Press
Secretary; Gene Fullano, Detailee, Telecom; Kelsey Guyselman,
Counsel, Telecom; Peter Kielty, Deputy General Counsel; Grace
Koh, Counsel, Telecom; David Redl, Counsel, Telecom; Charlotte
Savercool, Legislative Clerk; David Goldman, Democratic Chief
Counsel, Communications and Technology; Margaret McCarthy,
Democratic Professional Staff Member; Ryan Skukowski,
Democratic Legislative Assistant, Jeff Carroll, Democratic
Staff Director; Tiffany Guarascio, Democratic Deputy Staff
Director; and Tim Robinson, Democratic Chief Counsel.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. If Members would take their seats and our
guests. We appreciate everyone being here. The subcommittee
will come to order. Before we begin, I would like to remind our
guests in the audience the chair is obligated under the rules
of the House and rules of the committee to maintain order and
preserve decorum in the committee room. The chair appreciates
the audience's cooperation in maintaining that order.
Good morning and welcome to the subcommittee on
Communications and Technology's hearing on ``The Uncertain
Future of the Internet.'' Tomorrow, the Federal Communications
Commission is expected to adopt an order that may not
ultimately provide net neutrality protections for American
consumers, that might lay the ground for future regulation of
the Internet, that may raise rates for the American Internet
users, and that could stymie Internet adoption, innovation, and
investment. This Order may be the salvation of edge providers
that fear speculative ISP practices or it may be the beginning
of regulation of all platform providers wherever they sit on
the Internet. We just don't know, and it doesn't have to be
this way.
Let us take a moment to point out that Chairman Upton and I
asked for this process to be more open than is usual. We asked
the Chairman of the FCC to release the draft Order, the rules
and the jurisdictional arguments for the rules, before the
Commission vote, so that people could really understand what
they were getting themselves into. I recognize that it is not
customary for the FCC to release its document before a vote,
but then again, it is not customary for an FCC proceeding to
attract the attention of an HBO comedian or scores of
protesters and cat mascots parading in front of the FCC and
Chairman Wheeler's Georgetown home, nor is it customary to have
the President add his weight to steer an independent agency's
decision. Our calls for transparency have been echoed by others
to no avail. In short, we are still in the dark on the net
neutrality rules, and we don't have to be.
Uncertainty is what we hoped to stave off by introducing
legislation that would clearly demarcate the FCC's authority
over the Internet. Most of you know I did not see the need for
net neutrality rules, and some of my colleagues had to be
dragged ``kicking and screaming'' toward our draft bill. Thanks
for that remark, John Shimkus. Despite our reservations, we
came to the table with legislation for two reasons. The first
is that not one of us disagrees, not one of us disagrees, with
the four principles adopted by the FCC in 2005, the first
principle being consumers are entitled to access the lawful
Internet content of their choice. We all agree on that. Number
two, consumers are entitled to run applications and services of
their choice, subject to the need of law enforcement. Three,
consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices
that do not harm the network. And four, consumers are entitled
to competition among network providers, application and service
providers, and content providers.
The Internet has been a catalyst for our modern information
economy and culture precisely because of these guiding
principles. But the current draft Order, which will purportedly
subject the Internet to monopoly-era regulation under Title II
of the Communications Act, threatens to throw all of this out
the window and to generate significant uncertainty that will
impact the industry, its investors, and ultimately its
consumers.
Accordingly, the second reason that we have offered
legislation is to quell that wave of uncertainty. No more trips
to the D.C. Circuit for the FCC, at least on this issue. Our
economy and our communities are better served by ISPs that can
invest in services rather than in lawyers. We are all better
served by an agency with clear jurisdiction rather than one
that engages in policymaking by litigation. I think that this
is something that everyone would support, but I have yet to
find anyone willing to engage in a real negotiation over what
this bill should look like. I am not above asking again. So
let's talk about how we can work together to solve the problem
and end the uncertainty. The door remains open.
So today our hearing is intended to lay out some of the
questions we have been asking and to explore the uncertainty
surrounding these new proposed rules. Our panel of witnesses
today contains several veterans of this debate. Mr. Boucher, in
particular, welcome back. You sat right here in this very chair
with a gavel that looked a lot like this one when the FCC began
its first attempt to enforce net neutrality through regulation.
It is very good of you to return to talk to us about this same
issue today.
I hope that all of us here in the room will continue to
engage in a productive dialogue and use the tools at our, and
only our, disposal to end the net neutrality debate once and
for all.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Good morning and welcome to the Subcommittee on
Communications and Technology's hearing on ``The Uncertain
Future of the Internet.'' Tomorrow, the FCC is expected to
adopt an Order that may not ultimately provide net neutrality
protections for American consumers; that might lay the
groundwork for future regulation of the Internet; that may
raise rates for the American Internet users; and that could
stymie Internet adoption, innovation, and investment. This
Order may be the salvation of edge providers that fear
speculative ISP practices or the beginning of regulation of all
platform providers wherever they sit on the Internet. We just
don't know and it doesn't have to be this way.
Let's take a moment to point out that Chairman Upton and I
have asked for this process to be more open than usual. We
asked the Chairman to release the draft Order--the rules and
the jurisdictional arguments for the rules--before the
Commission vote, so people could really understand what they
were getting themselves into. I recognize that it is not
customary for the FCC to release its document before a vote,
but then again, it's not customary for an FCC proceeding to
attract the attention of an HBO comedian or scores of
protesters and cat mascots parading in front of the FCC and
Chairman Wheeler's Georgetown home. Nor is it customary to have
the President add his weight to steer an independent agency's
decision. Our calls for transparency have been echoed by others
to no avail. In short, we are still in the dark on the net
neutrality rules, and we don't have to be.
Uncertainty is what we hoped to stave off by introducing
legislation that would clearly demarcate the FCC's authority
over the Internet. Most of you know that I did not see the need
for net neutrality rules, and some of my colleagues had to be
dragged ``kicking and screaming'' toward our draft bill.
(Thanks for that remark, John.) Despite our reservations, we
came to the table with legislation for two reasons. The first
is that not one of us disagrees with the four principles
adopted by the FCC in 2005.
(1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet
content of their choice;
(2) consumers are entitled to run applications and services
of their choice, subject to the needs oflaw enforcement;
(3) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal
devices that do not harm the network; and
(4) consumers are entitled to competition among network
providers, application and service providers, and content
providers.
The Internet has been a catalyst for our modern information
economy and culture precisely because of these guiding
principles. But the current draft Order, which will purportedly
subject the Internet to monopoly-era regulation under Title II
of the Communications Act, threatens to throw all of this out
the window and to generate significant uncertainty that will
impact the industry, its investors, and ultimately its
consumers.
Accordingly, the second reason that we've offered
legislation is to quell that wave of uncertainty. No more trips
to the D.C. Circuit for the FCC--at least on this issue. Our
economy and our communities are better served by ISPs that can
invest in services rather than in lawyers. We are all better
served by an agency with clear jurisdiction rather than one
that engages in policymaking by litigation. I think that this
is something that everyone would support, but I have yet to
find anyone willing to engage in a real negotiation over what
this bill should look like. I'm not above asking again--let's
talk about how we can work together to solve the problem and
end this uncertainty. The door is open.
So today, our hearing is intended to lay out some of the
questions we've been asking and to explore the uncertainty
surrounding these new rules. Our panel of witnesses today
contains several veterans of this debate. Mr. Boucher, in
particular, sat in this very chair when the FCC began its first
attempt to enforce net neutrality through regulation. It's very
good of you to return to talk to us about this same issue
today. I hope that all of us here in the room will continue to
engage in a productive dialogue and use the tools at our, and
only our, disposal to end the net neutrality debate once and
for all.
Mr. Walden. I now recognize the gentlelady from Tennessee
for the remainder of my time.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome
each of you here today. I am one of those that believes the
Internet is a bright spot in today's economy. It is not broken,
and it does not need the FCC's help in order to be effective.
Title II of the Communications Act is the regulatory nuclear
option. It will stifle private-sector investment in networks by
creating regulatory uncertainty and lead to courtroom
challenges. We know that Title II reclassification could result
in as much as $11 billion in new fees and taxes.
We welcome you here today. We look forward to hearing your
viewpoints and to a lively discussion, and I yield back.
Mr. Walden. I thank the gentlelady. I now recognize my
friend from California, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee,
Ms. Eshoo, for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to all of
the witnesses, most especially our former colleague who is a
Member, a distinguished Member, of this committee both as a
chairman of the subcommittee and ranking member of the
subcommittee.
Mr. Chairman, I had a wonderful statement that I was going
to read, but I received a letter from Engine. It is dated
February 18 of this year. It is addressed to the Federal
Communications Commission, and I think that what they had to
say and the 102 entrepreneurs and start-ups that signed the
letter is really an eloquent statement about where we are and
where we need to go.
And it reads, ``Dear Commissioners. We are the small
independent businesses and entrepreneurs that Commissioner Pai
referenced in his February 6, 2015, press release about the
FCC's impending net neutrality rule-making, and we write to say
unequivocally that his release does not represent our views on
net neutrality. Quite the opposite. Entrepreneurs and start-ups
throughout the country have consistently supported Chairman
Wheeler's call for strong net neutrality rules enacted through
Title II.
``For today's entrepreneurs and start-ups, failure to
protect an open Internet represents and existential threat.
Because net neutrality is such an important issue, the start-up
community has been engaged in the Commission's open Internet
proceeding to an unprecedented degree. The clear, resounding
message from our community has been that Title II with
appropriate forbearance is the only path the FCC can take to
protect the open Internet. Any claim that a net neutrality plan
based in Title II would somehow burden `small independent
businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that
will push them out of the market' is simply not true. The
threat of ISPs abusing their gatekeeper power to impose tolls
and discriminate against competitive companies is the real
threat to our future.
``Contrary to any unsupported claims otherwise, we believe
that the outlined proposal that the Chairman circulated last
week will encourage competition and innovation by preventing
ISPs from using their gatekeeper power to distort the Internet
market for their own private benefit. A vibrant Internet
economy depends on an open playing field in which small,
innovative entrepreneurs can compete with incumbents on the
quality of their services, not on the size of their checkbook
or their roster of lobbyists. In Verizon v. FCC, the DC Circuit
stated in no uncertain terms that without reclassifying
broadband under Title II, the FCC cannot impose the bright-line
bands on ISP discrimination that start-ups need to compete. As
such, any plan that does not include Title II reclassification
cannot support strong net neutrality rules. We are pleased that
Chairman Wheeler has recognized this simple reality.
``Chairman Wheeler's plan is the best proposal we have seen
to date for protecting the open Internet. While there are
important details yet to be finalized, the substance of the
rules that the Chairman circulated last week are encouraging.
Any attempt to undermine the Chairman's proposal through
obfuscation and innuendo is not productive and certainly does
not represent the opinion of the start-ups and entrepreneurs
that have worked so hard to make the Internet great.''
And again, the letter is from Engine, and it is signed by
102 start-ups. And obviously that is now part of the record. I
also would like to place in the record, ask for unanimous
consent to place in the record, the editorial by Chad Dickerson
at Etsy CEO that testified before the committee.
Mr. Walden. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. Eshoo. I want to yield the remainder of my time--thank
you, Mr. Chairman--to Congresswoman Matsui.
Ms. Matsui. I thank the ranking member for yielding me
time, and I welcome the witnesses here today.
The future of this Internet has sparked unprecedented
interest. We all know that. Let us not forget that over four
million Americans took time out of their day to share their
voices with the FCC on the future of the Internet.
The American people overwhelmingly rejected the idea of so-
called Internet fast lanes, and as a result, Chairman Wheeler
rightly made a U-turn to ban prioritization agreements and as
to a ban on paid prioritization is a right move for the future
of the Internet.
Tomorrow's FCC vote will not be the end of the road. In
some ways the vote will be the beginning of the fight to
preserve net neutrality and protect consumers and encourage
innovation. That is why it will be critical for the FCC to
maintain the flexibility for the Internet age.
I look forward to the FCC's vote tomorrow, and I will
continue to work with my colleagues on this moving forward. And
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Walden. The gentlelady yields back. The chair now
recognizes the Chairman of the Full Committee, Mr. Upton of
Michigan, for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. In less than 24
hours the FCC will begin proceedings to green light new net
neutrality rules that rely on outdated utility-style
regulations to govern the Internet. They are taking this path
in part because of the limits on the FCC's statutory authority
and in part because of political pressures to act.
Unfortunately, whether intended or not, this approach brings
with it a host of consequences that have the potential to
disrupt the Internet that we have come to know and rely on.
Title II means applying regs that were never meant for this
technology or marketplace and relying on unstable legal ground
to refrain from applying others. It also means an inevitable
return to the courts for net neutrality rules, which will lead
to more years of uncertainty for consumers and providers. Until
it is resolved, there may be no rules of the road for either
consumers or industry.
To avoid this result, Chairman Walden, Thune, and I offered
draft legislation proposing net neutrality rules guided by the
principles for an open Internet that we all share. Our
committee has a rich history of taking on complex and difficult
issues and finding common ground that both sides can support.
Given what is at stake here, I had hoped this would be
another instance of such bipartisan cooperation. While I knew
that not everyone would be interested in the legislative path,
I am both surprised and deeply disappointed that we have not
yet been able to engage in a negotiation and produce a
bipartisan product with our colleagues. But tomorrow's
commission vote does not signal the end of this debate, rather
it is just the beginning. And I have to believe that as members
review the FCC's rules and hear today about the many problems
that will result, there will be an opportunity for a thoughtful
solution like the one we have offered: bright-line Internet
rules of the roads, safeguards to encourage innovation, and
enforcement mechanisms that allow the FCC to protect consumers
without years of court battles.
A legislative answer to the net neutrality question will
finally put to rest years of litigation and uncertainty.
Today's hearing will illustrate many of the harms that could
come from the FCC's Title II approach to net neutrality. Let us
work to avoid those landmines and get this done here, in
Congress, where policy decisions should belong. There is no
question that Americans deserve the most robust and innovative
Internet possible. This requires clear rules tailored to
protect consumers and companies. Rules like the ones we have
put forward in our discussion draft and the same rules the FCC
Chair, President Obama, and Democrats in Congress have sought
for years.
Once again, I would urge my colleagues to work with us and
help put net neutrality into law in a way that avoids the
costly, harmful consequences that we will hear about today. It
is the right thing to do, so let us get it done. I yield the
balance of my time to the Vice Chair of the subcommittee, Mr.
Latta.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton
In less than 24 hours the FCC will begin proceedings to
green light new net neutrality rules that rely on outdated
utility-style regulations to govern the Internet. They are
taking this path in part because of the limits on the FCC's
statutory authority, and in part because of political pressures
to act. Unfortunately, whether intended or not, this approach
brings with it a host of consequences that have the potential
to disrupt the Internet we have come to know and rely on.
Title II means applying regulations that were never meant
for this technology or marketplace, and relying on unstable
legal ground to refrain from applying others. It also means an
inevitable return to the courts for net neutrality rules, which
will lead to more years of uncertainty for consumers and
providers. Until it's resolved, there may be no rules of the
road for consumers or industry.
To avoid this result, Chairman Walden, Chairman Thune, and
I offered draft legislation proposing net neutrality rules
guided by the principles for an open Internet that we all
share. Our committee has a rich history of taking on complex
and difficult issues and finding common ground that both sides
can support. Given what is at stake here, I had hoped this
would be another instance of such bipartisan cooperation. While
I knew that not everyone would be interested in the legislative
path, I am both surprised and disappointed that we haven't yet
been able to engage in a negotiation and produce a bipartisan
product with our colleagues. But tomorrow's commission vote
does not signal the end of this debate; rather, it is just the
beginning. And I have to believe that as members review the
FCC's rules and hear today about the many problems that will
result, there will be an opportunity for a thoughtful solution
like the one we have offered: bright line Internet rules of the
road, safeguards to encourage innovation, and enforcement
mechanisms that allow the FCC to protect consumers without
years of court battles.
A legislative answer to the net neutrality question will
finally put to rest years of litigation and uncertainty.
Today's hearing will illustrate many of the harms that could
come from the FCC's Title II approach to net neutrality. Let's
work to avoid those landmines and get this done here, in
Congress, where policy decisions belong. There is no question
that Americans deserve the most robust and innovative Internet
possible. This requires clear rules tailored to protect
consumers and companies. Rules like the ones we have put
forward in our discussion draft--the same rules the FCC
Chairman, President Obama, and Democrats in Congress have
sought for years. Once again, I ask my colleagues to work with
us and help put net neutrality into law in a way that avoids
the costly, harmful consequences we will hear about today. It's
the right thing to do--and we can get it done.
Mr. Latta. I appreciate the chairman for yielding and
thanks very much for witnesses for being with us today. I look
forward to your testimony.
The FCC will vote tomorrow on a net neutrality proposal
that reclasses broadband Internet access service under Title II
of the Communications Act. I strongly disagree with this
approach. Time and time again we hear from businesses large and
small that the reclassification will disrupt our flourishing
Internet ecosystem by stifling innovation and slowing
investment. Subjecting a thriving, dynamic industry to navigate
the FCC's bureaucracy and red tape will adversely alter the
Internet as we know it today.
Furthermore, the FCC's proposal will inevitably introduce
legal and certainly due to its lack of statutory authority. The
discussion draft brought forth by Chairman Upton and Walden is
a strong indication to this issue--pardon me, a strong solution
to this issue. A legislative fix will provide regulatory
certainty and enact the President's network management
prohibitions without treating broadband as a common carrier.
I look forward to the hearing today, and Mr. Chairman, I
appreciate you yielding, and Chairman Walden, I yield back.
Thank you.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of the
time. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the Full
Committee from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I have said
before, net neutrality is critical because access to the
Internet is critical. We go online to apply for jobs, to help
our kids with their homework, and to grow our businesses. These
are just a few of the reasons why four million Americans
reached out to the FCC demanding strong network neutrality
protections. Due to this overwhelming civic engagement, we are
on the eve of a historic event at the FCC. Tomorrow the
Commission is set to put into place what may be the strongest
Internet protections consumers have ever had. And for all of
you who called in, who wrote in, who came in to support net
neutrality, you will see that the FCC and the rest of
Washington knows how to listen, even if it doesn't always
appear that way.
So I welcome the Republicans' change of heart on their
effort to legislate. I remain open to looking for ways to
enshrine the FCC's network neutrality protections into law, but
our effort can only work if it is truly bipartisan which is why
I am baffled about why we are holding this hearing today, Mr.
Chairman. Just a few weeks ago this subcommittee met on these
same issues. We all heard a number of major concerns with the
Republicans' discussion draft. We all heard that these are
complicated issues that take more than a few weeks to sort
through. This subcommittee and our Full Committee have too much
other important work to do to have the same hearings over and
over again.
For instance, the FCC just completed the most successful
auction in history for our Nation's airwaves. We could be
spending this time building on that auction and establishing a
spectrum pipeline for the future. We are nearly 2 months into
the new Congress with very little to show for it. I think this
subcommittee has enough talent to do more than just obsess over
one topic at a time. Our constituents expect more of us.
Now once we have all had time to review and evaluate the
FCC rules and their effects, we can hopefully look for ways to
find and reach consensus on a bipartisan legislative draft, but
now is not that time. Now is the time for the FCC to do its
work. I know that Chairman Wheeler will do everything in his
power to release the FCC Order as soon as he can after the
vote. To deliver on that promise, however, the Chairman needs
the cooperation of his fellow Commissioners. So I ask all the
Commissioners at the FCC, even those who may disagree with the
final decision, to work with Chairman Wheeler to make this
Order public as soon as possible.
And I now yield the remainder of my time to the gentlewoman
from New York, Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. I thank our Ranking Member, Mr. Pallone, as
well as our Ranking Member, Ms. Eshoo, for yielding me time
today. I would also like to thank our witnesses for lending
their expertise to today's hearing.
Mr. Chairman, protecting the free and open Internet is
truly and essentially an issue of access to economic
opportunity. More than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies
require online job applications. Our constituents simply cannot
compete without access to all that the Internet has to offer.
In my district and across our country, people are
increasingly moving to their smartphones and tablets as their
primary access point to the Internet. That is especially true
for the most economically vulnerable Americans. Seventy-seven
percent of our low-income families rely on their mobile phones
to get on line. So I support making sure that all Americans
have open access to the Internet. People should be able to find
the content and applications they want, no matter who they are
or where they live. They should not be constrained by Internet
gatekeepers, and the time has finally come to establish
certainty in this regard.
Therefore, I urge the Federal Communications Commission to
finish its work. Four million Americans have called in on the
FCC to adopt strong network neutrality protections. That eye-
popping number demonstrates how important this is. The country
has waited long enough.
I thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Walden. The gentlelady yields back the balance of the
time. And now we will move forward to hear from our witnesses.
We again thank you all for being here today to share your
expertise on this issue as we move forward. I want to start
with former chairman of this subcommittee, Mr. Boucher of
Virginia, who is with the Internet Innovation Alliance now as
the Honorary Chairman. Mr. Boucher, we are delighted to have
you back as we have all said, and we look forward to your
commentary this morning.
STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE RICK BOUCHER, HONORARY CHAIRMAN,
INTERNET INNOVATION ALLIANCE; GENE KIMMELMAN, PRESIDENT AND
CEO, PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE; ROBERT ATKINSON, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT,
THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION FOUNDATION; AND LARRY
DOWNES, PROJECT DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN CENTER FOR BUSINESS AND
PUBLIC POLICY
STATEMENT OF RICK BOUCHER
Mr. Boucher. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Walden and
Ranking Member Eshoo and other members of the subcommittee. It
is a privilege to accept the committee's invitation to return
to this very familiar surroundings and to share with you this
morning my views on the best way to assure protection for
network neutrality.
As the Chairman said in the introduction, I am the Honorary
Chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance. It is a
membership organization. We have 175 members including some
technology companies. I am also a partner at Sidley Austin. We
also there have clients who are telecommunications companies.
But here today, I am expressing my own views, not the views of
our law firm's clients or of the Internet Innovation Alliance.
From the very time that the debate began about a decade ago
on the network neutrality issue, I have been a strong proponent
network neutrality and of imbedding a central network
neutrality guarantees into our federal law. In those days I
joined with now Senator Markey and Congresswoman Eshoo and
others on this committee in a legislative effort that at that
time was not successful to assure network neutrality
guarantees. I remain a strong supporter today of network
neutrality as I was then.
I believed then as I believe today that assuring an open
Internet is essential to maintaining the Web as a vibrant
medium for free expression, for commerce, for education, for
healthcare delivery. It is clearly the most capable and
versatile communications medium that has been derived to date.
To keep it that way, I am here today to urge that the
committee develop a narrow bipartisan bill that gives statutory
permanence and an assured legal foundation to network
neutrality. I am concerned that if Congress does not act, all
protection for network neutrality is at risk of being lost.
FCC Chairman Wheeler has said that his reclassification
Order that will be approved tomorrow rests on a stronger legal
foundation than the FCC's 2010 Open Internet Order which
ultimately was overturned in court. And that may be true. But
it certainly is going to be subject to legal challenge. And we
can't know today what the outcome that that litigation is going
to be. We can predict that the court decision will be years
into the future and coming, and that will be at a time that is
well into the next presidential administration. We can just
look at the timeline for the Verizon decision that declared the
Open Internet Order be invalid. That didn't come until more
than 3 years after the suit was filed. Three years from now we
are into the next administration.
If the Republicans win the presidency in 2016, the next FCC
will have a Republican majority, 3 to 2, the mirror image of
what it is today. And it would be very unlikely to appeal and
adverse court decision or to institute a new proceeding that
would establish network neutrality guarantees. In fact, it is
very likely that a Republican FCC would move very quickly to
reverse tomorrow's classification decision, even if that
decision survives court determination.
Tomorrow's reclassification order and the network
neutrality principles it embodies truly rests on a tenuous
foundation. Without statutory protection, the network
neutrality guarantees can be swept away in the next
presidential election, and judging from the polling we are
seeing today, that is going to be a very close race.
Therefore, my sole purpose in appearing today is to say
that legislation is the superior solution. That is true for
those of us who strongly support network neutrality guarantees.
It is virtually impenetrable to judicial challenge and would
resolve the debate with statutory permanence that is simply not
available through the regulatory and administrative process.
I know the Democratic members of this committee have raised
concerns about the draft that has been circulated by the
Republicans, but I would make a couple of points in closing.
First of all, as Chairman Walden and Chairman Upton both have
indicated, the Republicans have made a major move toward the
historic Democratic position in offering to place strong
network neutrality guarantees into federal law. In essence,
they are offering to Democrats the very network neutrality
principals that, for a decade, Democrats have sought to
achieve.
By the same token, Democrats have concerns, and I think it
is important for the Republicans to acknowledge those concerns
and address them in a bipartisan negotiation. Surely those
concerns are subject to resolution. Candidly, I have some
concerns about the draft legislation, and if I were on the
Democratic side of the dais today, I would be expressing some
concerns as well.
In the end, what really matters is two key principles,
first, establishing strong network neutrality guarantees
perhaps using the FCC's 2010 Open Internet Order as a model and
secondly providing a continuation of the light touch
information service Title I treatment of the Internet that has
welcomed investment and made it a dynamic platform that has
become the envy of the world. Everything else should be open to
discussion, negotiation, and resolution.
At the moment, both sides have leverage. Both sides have
the opportunity to obtain their key priorities, and I very much
hope that a conversation will ensue and that you will adopt
legislation that does a service for the country and keeps the
Internet open and maintains the light touch regulatory
treatment that it enjoys today.
Thank you very much for having me here, and I will be
pleased to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boucher follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Mr. Boucher, thank you very much for your
testimony and your comments.
We now go to the President and CEO of Public Knowledge,
Gene Kimmelman, not a stranger to our committee. We welcome
your comments as well, sir.
STATEMENT OF GENE KIMMELMAN
Mr. Kimmelman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Eshoo, members of the subcommittee. On behalf of Public
Knowledge, which is a non-profit that promotes creativity,
freedom of expression on open communications platforms, I am
pleased to appear before you this morning, and I am most
honored to join with millions of consumers, citizens, civil
rights activities, start-up companies, small businesses, to
praise the direction that Chairman Wheeler at the FCC is going
in his proposed rules for open Internet because it is those
rules that will do more for our society to promote freedom of
expression and opportunity on what has become the most
important platform for economic opportunity, social mobility,
as Mr. Boucher said, education, healthcare. That is the
Internet. These rules are critical.
The proposed rules as we understand them actually follow a
long tradition of the FCC flexibly applying the mandate that
this Congress has directed it to follow in preventing
discriminatory practices that are unjust and unreasonable on
communications platforms. They are perfectly aligned with what
this Congress has asked in the past and update in conjunction
with all the innovation and technology that we have seen
exploding in this space, the fundamental principles that are
necessary to promote freedom of expression.
It is the Title II principles that have been undergirding
through all of our communications infrastructure the exposure
and investment, the tremendous innovation in telecommunications
that we have experienced in the last few decades, and the
enormous growth in the Internet economy. It is those same
principles the FCC is applying as we understand it in
tomorrow's ruling.
We think this just continues through light touch regulation
as again Mr. Boucher referred to, the approach that this
Congress has always been asking the FCC to be sensitive to with
clarity in its policing tools that are necessary to guide an
open Internet and prevent unreasonable discrimination on that
platform. We believe that is all they are doing.
Now, I understand from the comments made already this
morning and more that we will hear that there are questions
about regulation. There are questions about how to apply them.
There are questions about how far they go. It is not
unreasonable. It is not the first time. This is my third decade
of going through debates about common carriage and
discrimination going back to the breakup of AT&T through the
computer inquiry, through the 1996 Act, and now into the
Internet era. These are the very same important principles to
discuss.
But here is one thing I would like to highlight. I don't
know Chairman Wheeler that well. I have come to know him better
in the last few years, given where he sits and what he has
said, and here is what I have seen. This is a chairman of the
FCC who is very sensitive to the need for investment in
infrastructure and expansion of broadband opportunities for
Americans. This is a chairman who my perception is wants to
regulate as little as possible to accomplish the goals that
Congress has directed him to accomplish. And I therefore feel
very confident that he is attuned to all the concerns that you
are raising, he has listened to the public's input, and that
these proposed rules as we know them are likely to be
consistent with that.
So while I fully understand the interest in legislating, I
would urge you today to sit back and see what is put forward
tomorrow. See what will work and what you think won't work and
then consider what Congress rightfully needs to do to step in
and address those concerns. But I will also suggest please
consider if you are legislating addressing all the other
concerns that have been legitimately raised about potential
shortcomings in the Communications Act.
In that endeavor, we look forward to working with you as
you move forward. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kimmelman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Mr. Kimmelman, thank you for your testimony as
always. I would just point out that we are not doing a mark-up
today on legislation. We actually have said we are not going to
do a mark-up until we see what the FCC does, but we wanted to
hear from people like you about what you know about the Act at
this point or the Order at this point.
We will go now to Mr. Atkinson, the Founder and President,
Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. Mr. Atkinson,
we are delighted to have you here this morning to get your
perspective. Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT ATKINSON
Mr. Atkinson. Thank you, Chairman Walden and Ranking Member
Eshoo and members of the subcommittee. ITIF is a think tank
that focuses on advancing innovation and smart innovation
policy.
Let me start by arguing that I think it is time we should
consign the term net neutrality to the dustbin of history. It
is a misleading term. It is a bias term that has driven the
debate to the false conclusion that there is a one-size-fits-
all Internet and that absent Title II, Internet Armageddon is
one decision away.
Neither of these claims are true. Instead, what we need to
be talking about is the need for effective network policy for
the 21st century. Ten years from now our goal should be to have
a better, smarter Internet than we have today, and to be sure,
it should be a network that effectively polices abuses. We have
been and have continued to be long supporters of the view that
Internet providers should not be able to capriciously block or
degrade or create pay-to-play, forced pay-to-play. That has
been our position for 8 years now in the debate. And when we
see other nations that are doing things like shifting to a
carrier-pay model or allowing blocking competing applications,
for example, of VoIP, we strongly oppose those and rules should
do that.
But we also need a network that supports a rich diversity
of applications with the optimal levels of performance. This is
not the telephone era where you have one application riding on
one wire. What you have are multiple different applications
with multiple different needs all riding on one wire.
So the idea that we should have a rigid regulatory scheme
that requires all traffic to be delivered the same way is a
little bit like saying that we should force bicycles and mopeds
to drive on the interstate with sports cars and tractor
trailers. Or it is a little bit like the Postal Regulatory
Commission telling the U.S. Postal Service that they can no
longer have Priority or Express Mail. You can only deliver mail
at one speed, and that is really what we are talking about
here.
So in other words, there are two threats to the Internet
today, or potential threats. One is unreasonable discrimination
which we have seen frankly very, very little of, and the other
is the risk of a dumb static network that doesn't evolve as the
Internet economy evolves. Title II in our view is a bad idea
because it embodies the second of those two visions instead of
the first.
But Title II is a bad idea not just because of its rigidity
but because of the uncertainty it puts industry, both network
providers and edge providers under. As the Honorable Rick
Boucher said, the notion that Title II is going to put
regulations on a sure footing is simply wrong. To think that
Title II will provide certainty for anyone but the FCC is a
pipe dream. As Dr. Boucher referred to, there will be
significant legal challenges, significant legal uncertainty,
and certainly political uncertainty. Whoever the next president
is, could go in either direction, could go towards banning,
going back to Title I or could go and say we are going to
reverse any kind of forbearance actions that this current FCC
Chairman is committed to. So we just simply have no idea what
is going to happen.
Significantly, if Title II goes forward, there is also
going to be uncertainty over its implementation. Chairman
Wheeler has tried to mollify critics saying that he will
forbear and forbear from this and from that and from this. But
the fact that he has to give assurances is proof that Title II
is a kludge of a solution. It is not a solution when you have
to take whole components of it and move it off the table. It is
a little bit trying to fit the square peg of a smart network
policy into the round hole of Title II Telephone Regulation.
The other problem or challenge with the Chairman's actions
is that many groups are going to file petitions in terms of
forbearance. We already have some groups already, and I will
refer to my colleague, Gene Kimmelman's organization. Public
Knowledge has asserted just last week that they intend to push
to use Title II to require broadband providers, including new
entrants into the marketplace with innovative business models
deploying fiber, to serve all areas of a community at once.
This may or may not be a valid view. In our view, it is not.
But it has nothing to do with net neutrality.
We have seen Free Press state, ``with Title II, we have the
legal authority to win the battles that are coming around the
bend.'' So this is not really an argument about net neutrality.
This is an argument about broad-based regulation of network
providers.
So going forward, the only way in our view to achieve
certainty, for edge providers and network providers, is
congressional legislation, and to achieve that certainty, we
would argue that balance needs to be the watch word as you go
forward, and we need to have balance between the edge and the
core. We need balance between requiring a one-size-fits-all
dump pipe and allowing capricious discrimination, neither of
those solutions is the right way. And frankly, we need balance
between the over governance of Title II and the under
governance of doing nothing.
We believe that it is possible and desirable to get that
kind of solution that serves everybody's interest in the
debate. There is a real moment of opportunity. What we have
heard today is a broad consensus on the principles, and we
believe that Congress should work together to draft the kind of
framework we need for network policy for the 21st century.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Atkinson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Mr. Atkinson, we appreciate your comments, and
thank you for being here today. We will now go to our final
witness this morning from the Internet Industry. He is an
analyst and an author, Larry Downes. Mr. Downes, we are
delighted to have you here as well. Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF LARRY DOWNES
Mr. Downes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Eshoo, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the
opportunity to testify before you today. I am based in Silicon
Valley, have been for over 20 years, and have been actively
engaged in what really is the remarkable development of the
broadband Internet ecosystem in several capacities including as
an entrepreneur and advisor to start-ups and investors.
Since March 2014 I have also served as a Project Director
at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy
studying the increasingly uncomfortable tension between the
accelerating pace of disruptive innovation and the necessarily
deliberative processes of government.
My written testimony focuses on four major concerns with
the FCC's pending proceeding which I would like to summarize
now. Number one, Chairman Wheeler has flip-flopped from
pursuing open Internet rules to what now appears a full-force
effort to transform broadband into a public utility, threatens
to end nearly 20 years of bipartisan policy favoring light
touch regulation of the Internet, perhaps the most successful
approach to regulating an emerging technology in history.
Under the visionary approach of Congress, the Clinton
administration and FCC Chairman of both parties at the time and
since the 1996 Act wisely left Internet governance to the
engineering-driven, multi-stakeholder process, a process that
continues to rapidly evolve and improve the Internet's
architecture protocols and network management technologies.
Number two: The May 2014 NPRM which promised to follow the,
quote, roadmap laid out by the Verizon court to reenact the
open Internet rules under the authority of Section 706 now
appears to have been jettisoned in favor of an all-inclusive
plan to regulate every node of the Internet infrastructure
including peering, transit, and other essential but non-neutral
network management principles the 2010 report and Order wisely
and explicitly excluded. Though we have yet to see the final
report and Order, it is reported to be over 300 pages long. Its
length will challenge even its strongest proponents to say with
a straight face that it is any way a simple or light touch
resolution to a decade of debate over the appropriate and
legally permitted role of the FCC in policing the Internet. And
as we know from its 2010 counterpart, most of its most
contentious and legally challenged aspects will be
intentionally buried deep in the text and in hundreds of
footnotes.
The jurisdictional gymnastics were bad enough in 2010. Now,
given the acknowledged misfit, both from a legal and policy
standpoint of Title II written decades ago to closely regulate
the former public switch telephone network monopoly, the
process is already confounded by the need to first transform
the Internet into a public utility and then immediately begin
the process of unraveling that decision. Having selected the
blunt instrument of Title II, the FCC in its discretion must
continually decide on its least-appropriate provisions in an
attempt to undo them through clumsy and legally uncertain
forbearance proceedings. At the very least, extensive
forbearance invites the worst kind of rent-seeking behavior by
self-interested parties throughout the Internet ecosystem.
Number three: Recent developments in this long-running
debate over who and how to regulate the Internet have now made
clear that for many advocates that open Internet rules were
always the populist tail wagging the shaggy Title II dog.
Though the rhetoric of net neutrality remains the substance of
the FCC's pending rule-making instead advances a long-running
campaign to abandon the light touch model and replace it with a
public utility regime, the goal all along for many supposed
open Internet advocates. Though the FCC may today attempt or
not to forbear from the most damaging provisions of Title II,
the campaign is already preparing to drive the Title II wedge
as far as possible which, for the most vocal advocates have
always included mandatory unbundling, required build-outs, pre-
or post-hoc rate regulation, universal service fees and other
taxes, and shared jurisdiction with state public utility
commissions. Perhaps the light touch model was wrong all along.
Perhaps the transformation of the Internet into a public
utility would do a better job of encouraging investment,
adoption in innovation. I don't think so, but if that is what
we are debating, we should at least acknowledge it and move the
debate to Congress where it obviously belongs.
Number four: Abandoning the Verizon court's Section 706
roadmap in favor of public utility regime as the Chairman has
not hesitated to acknowledge introduces considerable legal
uncertainty that at best will mean another 2 years or more
without resolution to the open Internet debate. It is not
simply my personal belief that Congress never intended for
broadband Internet to be regulated as a public utility like the
old telephone network. That of course has long been the
interpretation of the 1996 Act of the FCC itself, an
interpretation ratified in 2005 by the United States Supreme
Court in the Brand X case. Overcoming a decade of FCC policy
and Supreme Court precedent will require considerable
innovation and outright creativity by government lawyers that
will certainly take years to resolve one way or the other.
There is a better way, one that removes all legal
uncertainty in an instant and avoids many of the intended and
unintended consequences of the public utility gambit. The
legislation introduced last month in both the House and the
Senate would quickly and cleanly resolve the FCC's persistent
jurisdictional problems and enact precisely the rules called
for in even the most aggressive articulation of open Internet
principles. Though I continue to believe the engineering-driven
multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet is the optimal
solution, one that has worked with remarkable efficiency since
its inception, I have from the beginning supported the proposed
legislation if only as a way to end the largely academic debate
about the need for what the FCC itself calls, quote,
prophylactic rules.
I thank you again for the invitation and look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Downes follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[The attachments to Mr. Downes' testimony have been
retained in committee files and can be found at http://
docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if16/20150225/103018/hhrg-114-if16-
wstate-downesl-20150225.pdf.]
Mr. Walden. Mr. Downes, thank you, and thanks to all of our
witnesses for testifying today. We appreciate your comments,
your suggestions, and your concerns. I would like to ask
unanimous consent to submit into the record an opinion piece
written by Robert McDowell, former FCC Commissioner, and Gordon
Goldstein that was in the Wall Street Journal entitled,
Dictators Love the FCC's Plan to Regulate the Internet; the
Obama Administration's Efforts to Treat the Web Like a Utility
has Fans from Saudi Arabia to the Putin's Kremlin. Without
objection.
[The information has been retained in committee files and
can be found at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/if/if16/
20150225/103018/hhrg-114-if16-20150225-sd009.pdf.]
Ms. Eshoo. Oh, my God. Come on.
Mr. Walden. Well, I don't generally comment on the
submissions you have. So Mr. Downes, the United States recently
returned from a treaty conference in South Korea where our
delegation fought to keep the Internet from coming under the
purview of the UN's International Telecommunications Union. The
ITU has an extensive set of regulations that apply to
telecommunications including economic relations on
interconnection. Would the FCC redefine a broadband Internet as
a public utility telecommunications service within the ITU
constitutional remand? And with the FCC stating that its
regulatory powers would include Internet interconnection
agreements, have the implications for international termination
agreements been considered by the Commission and what effect do
you think this will have?
Mr. Downes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So of course, again,
we have to qualify that we have not seen the full report. We
don't know exactly how they are going to do this, but certainly
if we are talking about a telecommunications service, that is
within the purview of the ITU and the treaties that the United
States is subject to in conjunction with its membership in the
ITU.
Whether or not this is going to stand up legally, I think
there is no question that these forces within the ITU that are
eager to introduce things like sending network pays, models
that we have had on telephone service and introduce that for
Internet service is a way of subsidizing their own local
broadband connections. They will certainly make the argument,
whether they are successful or not, that our move undermines
our longstanding commitment to keeping the Internet away from
those kinds of telecommunications and settlement regimes, and
really, it certainly undermines our moral high ground in saying
so whether or not they get away with it or not.
Mr. Walden. Under GATS, countries that declare services to
be basic services like telephony could limit U.S. investment
opportunities abroad. Up until now the USTR has argued that
Internet broadband is a value-added service, and importantly in
many country trade commitments, there are more liberal market
access opportunities for value-added services as compared to
basic services.
For example, China has more restrictive rules for who can
obtain a basic service license, and China has defined services
connected to the Internet to be basic services, a definition
that the U.S. trade representative has challenged in the past.
Taking this as an example, could the FCC reclassification
to a telecommunications utility as they are doing allegedly
under their rule change USTR negotiating positions abroad and
result in closing market access and competition opportunities
for U.S. companies?
Mr. Downes. So I don't feel comfortable sort of answering
the question in terms of what it would force the USTR to do,
but certainly as I say, from a rhetorical standpoint, it makes
our negotiating position, our leverage, much more subject to
those kinds of arguments coming from the countries we have been
urging so strongly over the years to try to keep Internet as a
light touch regulatory model the way we have historically done.
Mr. Walden. All right. Mr. Atkinson, you raised some issues
involving Mr. Kimmelman's organization. I would like to hear
you pursue that a bit and then get Mr. Kimmelman's reaction as
well. What else do you see out there in terms of what the FCC
is proposing in their Open Internet Order?
Mr. Atkinson. Well, again, we haven't seen it, but I would
agree with Mr. Downes that the net neutrality argument for some
groups, not all groups, and I don't really believe this is true
for most of the industry advocates, for example, in Silicon
Valley, but the net neutrality argument in my view has been a
stocking horse for going back to a network that is highly
regulated and ultimately going to a network that is publically
owned. I think that is the end goal for many, many of these
organizations. They want cities or governments to be running
these networks, and they equate them to roads which most roads
are publically operated and publically funded, not all. And so
I think what we will see--and I didn't mean to just point out
Public Knowledge alone because there are other groups that do
that, but I noticed it last week when I was on their Web site.
It was pretty stark. It was essentially saying that they would
use the Title II power to require broadband providers to roll
out broadband in a certain way. Now, if you do that, I think
what the end rules of that will be will be much less
competition because it is harder for new entrants to come into
a market and put a little bit of broadband here. They may not
have the capital. They may not have the markets right away. But
if you are requiring them to serve an entire area from the day
one, you will simply get fewer competitors coming into the
wireline marketplace, and I think that is going to end up
hurting.
So I think we will see more and more of that as--my
prediction is if Title II decision is made tomorrow, you will
see sort of a period of quiet for maybe 3 or 4 months, and then
you will start seeing this next sort of wave. Well, we have
done that for net neutrality but what about this? What about
prices? What about discrimination?
So I think it is just really the first step that we are
going to be seeing here.
Mr. Walden. I appreciate that. Mr. Kimmelman?
Mr. Kimmelman. Thank you. I think Mr. Atkinson has
fundamentally misunderstood what was a Q&A session that was
reported on our Web site. It was a response to the question
about is there a concern for red-lining as broadband is built
out, denying service to low-income marginalized communities?
And our staff indicated that there was a concern. We didn't
call for regulating everyone.
Mr. Walden. All right.
Mr. Kimmelman. And I think as Mr. Atkinson knows, we have
supported differing treatment of dominant and non-dominant
carriers for years and years and years. Everyone knows as
competition grows, you need to let start-ups get into a market
and challenge the dominant players.
So I think that is just a misunderstanding.
Mr. Walden. All right. Mr. Atkinson, anything else? Five
seconds.
Mr. Atkinson. Well, I would be happy to submit to the
committee the actual statement that a Public Knowledge employee
researcher----
Mr. Walden. All right.
Mr. Atkinson [continuing]. Puts on there, and it is very
clear that they intend to use Title II for this purpose.
Mr. Walden. All right. My time is expired. I recognize my
friend from California, Ms. Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the witnesses.
First on the issue of equating the open Internet rules with
repressive government attempts at online censorship I really
think is misinformed and irresponsible. Several of the
governments seeking to expand the UN and ITU role in Internet
governance are actively engaged in blocking their citizens'
access to information online. And that is very important to
have down in the record. This is the opposite of U.S. policy.
This is not U.S. policy. It is the stark opposite of it.
We adopted the open Internet rules to protect consumers'
access to the content of their choosing. That is one of the
basic tenants of an open Internet. So I think it is important
to get that down for the record.
I have several questions. I doubt that I am going to be
able to ask all of them. I ask that you keep your answers
brief. Mr. Downes, you are really lathered up about this. Last
week T-Mobile--this is on the issue of investment and this
whole notion, wild accusations that the market is going to be
chilled, there isn't going to be any investment. Last week T-
Mobile became the second major wireless carrier to downplay the
implications of Title II on their ability to continue
investing. So how do you reconcile T-Mobile's statements and
similar comments by Sprint with your belief that the FCC action
will threaten the long-term health and continued investment in
broadband?
Mr. Downes. OK. Thank you, Ms. Eshoo. I can't obviously
comment on what T-Mobile and Sprint are thinking and their
reasoning, but what I can say is, you know, under this light
touch bipartisan policy we have had the last 20 years, we have
had over a trillion dollars of investment in broadband----
Ms. Eshoo. No, but I am asking you, the charge is, and it
has been made by those that oppose essentially my position and
those like-minded individuals and organizations, it is a very
serious charge that has been made. So can you reconcile it? Do
you have proof? Is there lack of investment? Is there already a
chill? Do you have information from the New York Stock Exchange
or others? I think it is one thing to say we are concerned
about something. It is another thing to make a charge that, A,
is definitely going to happen and is going to produce B.
So let me move on to Rob Atkinson. Thank you. Good friends.
I am an Honorary Co-Chair of ITIF and proud to be. In the
absence of robust broadband competition, I think there is an
even greater need for strong enforceable open Internet rules.
Now, your testimony doesn't raise this issue, but the facts I
think point to rather dismal picture. At speeds of 25 MB per
second, nearly half of Americans have just one choice. At
slower broadband of 10 MB per second, 30 percent of all
Americans still have only one choice.
So what would you propose be done to enhance broadband
competition? And just be as brief as possible. If you have like
maybe three bullet points?
Mr. Atkinson. Well, first of all, as we have written on
that, no country in the world has a majority of its connections
over 25 MB, even North Korea certainly doesn't. Even South
Korea.
Ms. Eshoo. Yes, but we are talking about the United States
of America. So I am asking----
Mr. Atkinson. Right, but my point is that----
Ms. Eshoo [continuing]. You a very direct question.
Mr. Atkinson. Congresswoman, my point on that is simply 25
MB I think is a standard that is just too high. No country
meets it. So we do have robust competition, more around the 10
to 15 MB range where we have a lot of providers competing.
But I would agree with you. I don't think competition--you
could have more competition or less competition. I would fully
agree. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have rules because
even with competition, you can have abuse. So I agree with you
we need rules.
Ms. Eshoo. OK. I am going to ask you to stop so I can get
to our friend, Rick Boucher. And it is wonderful to see you,
and thank you for being here today.
Eight years ago you introduced the Community Broadband Act
of 2007, yourself and then-Representative Upton, as a way to
overturn state bans on municipality-built broadband networks to
spur deployment. Would you still stand with that today?
Mr. Boucher. My views have not changed, Congresswoman
Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. Good.
Mr. Boucher. I believed then and believe today that where
the incumbent providers are not offering an adequate service
and in many places their service is either quite slow or in
some very rural communities and reaches of the community is
non-existent. If a community wants to step up and provide a
broadband service that enhances economic development, then it
ought to be free to do so.
I would just note that in one community in my formal
congressional district, the City of Bristol, the public utility
there that is city owned overbuilt the incumbent provider and
offers a gigabit-level network that has been tied directly to
the creation of more than 1,000 jobs in that community.
So yes, I think it makes a lot of sense. I indicated that
my testimony here today is entirely my own views, and you have
asked for my view and I can assure you that my view has not
changed.
Ms. Eshoo. Well, that is wonderful, and I hope that the FCC
Chairman's proposal includes what you began many years ago.
Thank you. I think my time has more than expired.
Mr. Walden. The gentlelady yields back. The chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Tennessee, the Vice Chair of the
Full Committee, Ms. Blackburn, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
each of you for your time to be here. Our constituents are
really concerned about this issue. As I said in my opening
remarks, they don't think the Internet is broken and they don't
understand why the FCC would be trying to step in. So we
appreciate hearing from you.
Another thing that I hear and I want to take my questions
this direction is the issue of new fees and taxes. I know
Progressive Policy Institute had a study, and they said maybe
$11 billion in new fees and taxes. And then January 16 the
Washington Post ran a story attacking that figure, but then
they noted that through interviews with tax and regulation
experts that Title II reclassification would likely, and I am
quoting, ``cost some consumers something.'' And we know that
Chairman Wheeler is, as Mr. Atkinson, you pointed out, there
has been discussion about forbearance from applying universal
service fees on broadband and other components. So we do have
concern about this in the reclassification, that it will lead
to some amount of increased fees and taxes. And February 2 the
New York Times ran a piece titled In Net Neutrality Push, the
FCC is Expected to Propose Regulating Internet Service as a
Utility. And in that piece, David Farber, Professor Farber from
Carnegie Mellon, and I think all of you probably are familiar
with him. He helped to design parts of the backbone of the
Internet. And as we say in Tennessee, it was not done by Al
Gore. It was done by others. But the article states Professor
Farber commented, ``Regulating the Internet like a telecom
service potentially opens up a Pandora's Box.''
And he advised that information services are typically free
of taxes while telecommunications services are not especially
at the state level.
So what I want to ask you all, looking at these components,
from Progressive Policy Institute, the review of that by the
Post, the comments as in the New York Times by Professor
Farber, does anyone on the panel dispute the conclusions of Dr.
Farber, the Progressive Policy Institute, and the Washington
Post? Mr. Kimmelman? Go ahead.
Mr. Kimmelman. Ms. Blackburn, I certainly dispute the
implications of that is being said. What is being said is if
there will be new taxes and fees. My understanding is the
chairman's proposal will have no new federal taxes and fees. He
is forbearing from a portion of Section 254 as I understand it
from his own description of what he will propose tomorrow. So
there will be no federal taxes and fees.
As to state and local government, which I believe is what
Dave Farber was also referring to, it is today the case that
every state can decide on its own what it wants to tax, what it
wants to impose fees on, subject to limitations that this
Congress is and has imposed on the Internet tax moratorium
legislation which you can adjust as need be to make sure that
state and local governments do not go beyond what you think is
reasonable.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. So Mr. Kimmelman, you are disagreeing
with the conclusions of Dr. Farber? You disagree with him as
one of the architects of the Internet?
Mr. Kimmelman. I don't believe he is the architect of tax
systems. I believe that is your job here and what state
governments do, and he presented----
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. So you are----
Mr. Kimmelman [continuing]. A point of view of what he
thinks might happen somewhere and----
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. I am going to interrupt you again----
Mr. Kimmelman [continuing]. That is plausible but it is not
a statement of fact.
Mrs. Blackburn [continuing]. So we can continue on this. So
let me ask you this. How much do you anticipate it is going to
cost consumers and private industry, especially if USF funds
are eventually applied to Internet access? And most people
agree, even Free Press, that reclassification would lead to
some net increase in taxes and fees of about $4 billion. So
what do you really think?
Mr. Kimmelman. I am hopeful, Ms. Blackburn, that the FCC
will review its universal service rules, will do something
about the approximately 10 percent, way-too-inflated fee that
all of us are paying----
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
Mr. Kimmelman [continuing]. On our telephone bills and
figure out a better system where we actually all pay less. I
believe----
Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Kimmelman----
Mr. Kimmelman [continuing]. That is certainly plausible.
Mrs. Blackburn [continuing]. Let me ask you this in my few
seconds that remain. Were you or your organization, Public
Knowledge, privy to any of the closed-door sessions at the
White House where there was a discussion on what the net
neutrality order would look like coming from the FCC?
Mr. Kimmelman. No. No, Ms. Blackburn. We were not privy to
any----
Mrs. Blackburn. Have you seen draft language?
Mr. Kimmelman. No, I have not.
Mrs. Blackburn. Yield back.
Mr. Walden. The gentlelady yields back, and I now recognize
Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said just a few
weeks ago at the subcommittee's other open Internet hearing,
one of the important aspects of net neutrality is ensuring that
the FCC stands ready to protect consumer privacy, whether with
regard to consumers needing telephone access or consumers
needing broadband Internet access. Yet yesterday Administrator
Strickland confirmed to me that the White House intends to
release as early as this week its Consumer Privacy Bill of
Rights proposal which could effectively strip the FCC of its
ability to regulate consumer privacy. The administration has
not shared the proposal with members of this committee but has
shown it to industry. As confirmed yesterday under the current
draft which I am hopeful can be modified before release,
telephone, Internet or cable companies can get out of FCC
privacy oversight by creating a self-regulatory privacy code of
conduct through a multi-stakeholder process. Specifically,
these companies would no longer be covered by Section 222, the
privacy section of Title II or other similar provisions.
So Mr. Kimmelman, I wanted to ask you. There are several
concerns with the current draft privacy bill from the White
House from basing it on a tried and failed multi-stakeholder
process to potentially weakening FTC's current authorities.
However, can you please comment on the concept of allowing
telephone, Internet, and other providers being relieved of
their obligations under Section 222?
Mr. Kimmelman. Thank you, Mr. Pallone, and I appreciate
your strong concerns about this. I certainly hope what you have
heard is not accurate. I think this could be an enormous
problem for consumers who have relied on the ability to protect
their own personal privacy on telephone calls and their own
viewing habits over cable television. That has been what
Section 222 of the Communications Act has been applied to most
generally. I certainly hope the administration is not
considering rolling that back.
Mr. Pallone. Can I ask you, I don't know if you wanted to
respond to anything else that members have brought up so far if
you haven't had the opportunity and wanted to comment further?
Mr. Kimmelman. I would like to say something about the ITU
having spent a bit of time at the WCIT Conference where Rob
McDowell was as well. I think there is a little bit of a
misunderstanding or sleight of hand here of raising telecom
utility as a definition which I do not believe is what, based
on what I have seen of the statements of the Chairman of the
FCC, he is proposing to do with his Open Internet Order and
drawing things into some broader regulatory framework at the
ITU. I just don't believe that is on the table.
On the contrary, I believe from the description that has
been provided of the proposed plan, it is the actual
effectuation of the U.S. Government's position against Russia
and China and Iran and other repressive regimes that we not
only ask other governments to prevent censorship and
interference with their citizens' communications but we
ourselves practice that and do not censor citizens'
communications on the open Internet and do not allow corporate
gatekeepers to do the same.
So I view it as quite consistent with our past policies.
Mr. Pallone. I thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to
say I know--and Ms. Eshoo and I were talking about this
earlier. The Republicans keep talking about court challenges,
and the fact of the matter is that anything can be tied up in a
court challenge. And you know, there was a time when the
Republicans tried to avoid litigation. I specifically remember,
they have and continue to talk about tort reform in the
healthcare sector. But now it looks like the GOP wants to sue
on everything, you know? They sue on the ACA. They sue on
immigration reform. I am just commenting on the fact that I
really don't quite understand why, we as a subcommittee or as a
committee have to be constantly worried about who is going to
sue who because we never know who is going to sue no matter
what the action is by FCC or any other agency.
So I just, a comment on the fact that I really don't think
that we should be deciding what to do here, based on who we
think is going to sue who. And certainly I see that if
anything, it is the Republicans that appear to be more
litigious these days than our side of the aisle.
I yield back.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time. Chair now recognizes the former chairman of the
committee, Mr. Barton, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Barton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we are delighted
to have the Honorable Boucher here. It is a level of the
respect and the amount of intimidation factor that you have not
yet been asked a question. We are afraid of you, Mr. Boucher.
But I remember well the debates you and I have had, some on the
same side, some on opposite sides. And we are delighted that
you are here again. We love Morgan Griffith. He is a great
member of this committee, but we miss you and we wish you well.
Mr. Boucher. Thank you very much, Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. We have talked about this issue of net
neutrality, and Mr. Atkinson quite rightly pointed out that
that is a misnomer. Net neutrality as espoused by the most
aggressive proponents, there is nothing neutral about it. It is
net regulation. What the FCC is probably going to vote on
tomorrow is net nonsense. It is not going to work. It is going
to be tested in court. It is going to fail in court. The
chairman of this subcommittee and the Full Committee have put
out a draft that would give some certainty but would maintain
the premise of true neutrality.
Now, Mr. Boucher, you are a smart guy, you know? You are a
lot smarter than me. But you understand, and I want to commend
you for your--you were the only one that really made any
political comments, you know? You put it on the table. You have
great candor, and I appreciate that.
But 1934, when we passed whatever we call that Act, the
Communications Act, there was one phone company basically. Now,
there were some small rural telephone companies, but if you
wanted a phone company in your particular area, you went to one
company. You went to one company. Today in Ennis, Texas, if I
don't like my Internet provider, which is Charter Cable, AT&T
will come in and do it for me. Verizon will come in and do it
for me. There are any number of providers that all I have to do
is pick up a solicitation letter in my mailbox or next time the
phone answers say yes to somebody who wants to provide me
different Internet services. There are all kinds of
competition.
Title II was passed when you had one provider. Do you agree
with that?
Mr. Boucher. Mr. Barton, I don't disagree with anything
that you just said. The phone----
Mr. Barton. Including--and everybody else.
Mr. Boucher. The tone that I would express that sentiment
in is the following, that there is a better way. Title II is
kind of a blunt instrument. It is a relic from another era that
doesn't fit very well in today's highly competitive
communications market where you have got the world's most
capable platform for delivering information of all kinds and
multiple parties delivering access to that platform, depending
on whose service you want. Title II was never conceived for an
environment like that. There is a better way, and the better
way--I will come back to my original remarks--is for this
committee----
Mr. Barton. I am not going to let you filibuster too long.
Mr. Boucher. Well, I am only going to take about 10 seconds
here, but you come together on terms that are for today's
modern era that offer network neutrality assurances and
maintain broadband as a lightly regulated Title I information
service. That honestly is what is called for in today's
environment.
Mr. Barton. In the Chairman's draft as he has put out, you
would generally support it?
Mr. Boucher. I think it moves in the right direction, and I
think it is important to note how far the Republicans have now
moved toward the historic Democratic position.
Mr. Barton. See, and that bothers me.
Mr. Boucher. Well, I know you, and I am not surprised. But
I hope you will see the light this time. And let me just stay
that I think it is a major development that now everyone is
talking about the best way to preserve network neutrality, and
the best way to do that is a narrowly crafted statute that
gives permanence to these principles.
You know, we have been debating this issue now for a
decade, and everyone has more important work to do. Mr. Wheeler
at the FCC has more important work to do, but he is going to
spend a lot of time responding to requests here and litigation
in court unless this issue is put to rest.
So a decade into it now, it is time to settle it. This
committee has within its ability the power to do that----
Mr. Barton. OK. I want to----
Mr. Boucher [continuing]. And both of you have an
incentive. Both sides have an incentive to get it done. So I
hope you will.
Mr. Barton. I want to go to Mr. Atkinson very quickly. Do
you and the people you represent generally support what
Chairman Walden and Chairman Upton have put out in draft form?
Mr. Atkinson. I would associate myself with Congressman
Boucher's remarks. I think it is in the right direction. I
think there is room for compromise in it. I think the
Democratic side has raised some points that have validity.
Though it is not a perfect bill in my view, but it is a very,
very important first step and it lays the groundwork for a
legislative solution.
Mr. Barton. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman's time is expired. Now we go to
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing, and thank you to all the witnesses, particularly my
good friend and colleague, Rick Boucher. It is good to see you
back here, Rick.
I am excited to see the FCC take this next step tomorrow in
protecting an open Internet. I think the Chairman has
recognized the passion and interest that people around the
country have for this issue, and he has seen broad support from
an array of stakeholders, from investors to venture capitalists
to edge providers and ISP. Most recognize that the sky isn't
falling, and many applaud the certainty that these rules will
bring to the marketplace.
You know, this morning I was checking the stock prices for
many of the major telecom companies, and most companies' values
were up. So clearly investors don't think the sky is falling,
either. Statements by executives by many of the Nation's
largest telecom companies reflect their expectation that these
rules won't change their investment or deployment strategies
and that they believe properly crafted rules will not affect
their businesses.
I also want to point out that the FCC is also moving
forward to grant a number of petitions by communities to lift
restrictions on municipal broadband deployments. I think that
is a great step in the right direction, and I think the
communities can bring some much-needed competition to the
broadband market.
And finally, let me say with regards to some of the
concerns expressed by Ms. Blackburn, the Washington Post fact
checker looked at this study that she cites and completely
debunked the study. The fact checker said the more complex the
issue, the easier it is for politicians to obfuscate the
reality of the dramatic numbers, and our constituents deserve
better than scare tactics that deliberately mislead the public
and gave it three Pinocchios. So I think that speaks to that
issue.
Mr. Kimmelman, I want to follow up on a question that Mr.
Pallone asked you. This proposal by the White House sounds like
it would severely undercut the FCC's authority to prevent ISPs
from using their position in the marketplace to do things like
charging subscribers not to have their browsing history data-
mined or setting super-cookies that allow users to be
identified and tracked across the Internet.
What benefit do you see in the FCC's ability to enforce
privacy protections on ISPs and what do you think would be lost
if that authority was removed and vested in the FTC that may
lack the authority to establish bright line rules the way the
FCC could under Title II?
Mr. Kimmelman. Mr. Doyle, I think it is a very serious
concern if what you describe is accurate. I think that
consumers across the country rely upon the infrastructure of
communications in this country to protect their privacy. It has
historically done so. Section 222 has been used for that, and I
think we need to look at that in the broadband environment. It
would be extremely unfortunate if that were thrown out the
window at this moment.
I have a concern just based on the characterization that
you provided and Mr. Pallone that the administration which had
been working on privacy legislation 4 years ago and had brought
together many stakeholders has pulled something out of the
drawer and hasn't maybe fully looked at changes in the
environment, including the regulatory environment, since those
ideas were first floated. And I certainly hope that they are
updating that and are listening to the concerns raised.
This would be a very significant concern for consumers if
all of a sudden they thought their privacy was in jeopardy.
Mr. Doyle. Mr. Kimmelman, some have argued that paid
prioritization and unencumbered zero rating of apps and
services can be beneficial to consumers. Others say that these
policies could lead to greater barriers to entry in the
marketplace and in fact hurt consumers by limiting the array of
new businesses and start-ups that can climb the pay walls that
these policies erect. Where do you stand on that?
Mr. Kimmelman. Mr. Doyle, I think paid prioritization can
be extremely dangerous to the Internet ecosystem that we have
today. I constantly think back to what Tim Berners-Lee has
talked about as permissionless innovation. He didn't have to
ask anyone to develop the World Wide Web. I think that is an
important concept to keep in mind here.
Now having said that, that does not mean everything is--it
is one size fits all as Rob has said. It means there needs to
be important regulatory oversight functions applied as to what
a particular service does, whether it is beneficial to the
competitive process, whether it opens opportunities for
innovators, whether it creates a new competitive option in the
marketplace.
So I wouldn't classify every service one way or the other,
but in general, I think there should be a big alarm bell goes
off when you see something that looks like paid prioritization
as a starting point.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back his time. I would
like to ask unanimous consent to submit in the record a letter
from Mr. Mark Cuban who says the market is aware of the
uncertainty the FCC is creating--and will respond accordingly
by creating volatility, and a story in News Bay Media. Moffet
Downgrades Cable Sector on Title II Woes. Without objection,
those two items will be inserted in the record.
I now turn to Mr. Olson. Are you sure it is not Mr.
Shimkus, I believe was here?
Voice. Sorry, sir.
Mr. Walden. Yes, Mr. Shimkus overriding my own counsel here
for the next 5 minutes.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you. Well, it is great to be here, a
great panel, great discussion, and again, it is good to see
Rick here, although his real name is Frederick Carlisle, goes
by Rick. So I did my due diligence.
Mr. Atkinson, given the Title II explicitly allows for
discrimination, how can the FCC place an outright ban on paid
prioritization?
Mr. Atkinson. Well, I disagree with this notion on paid
prioritization. If we really want to ban paid prioritization,
then we should ban CDNs, content delivery networks, that major
companies like Netflix use. They are paying to get their
traffic as close to the customer as possible. And a little
Silicon Valley start-up, maybe they can't pay for a CDN.
So I think this notion that somehow some kind of paid
prioritization is OK and some kind is not. Now my position is
we should let the market determine that. I actually think this
could be really good for start-ups. There may be start-ups that
can't afford to use CDN services. They may want to say, I have
an application that has what engineers call low latency needs.
The best efforts Internet isn't going to do that. As long as
the rule says that if you don't pay you always get best efforts
Internet, we can never have a system where a carrier says you
have to pay to get best efforts. So that is what any
congressional rule has to say.
But if you want to go beyond it, it is like I can get a 40-
cent stamp or whatever it costs for the mail today, but if I
want to go beyond it as a businessperson, I have the right to
get it. And I think that is very much pro-consumer and pro-
business.
Mr. Shimkus. But to have the certainty, that would require
legislation. That would require language other than FCC going
to the current Communications Act and then trying to wiggle in
one section over the other.
Mr. Atkinson. Right. Absolutely. And that is why we
supported so strongly Chairman Wheeler's initial proposal
because he allowed paid prioritization, but he said it has to
be reasonable and has to be pro-consumer and there are some
safeguards around it. But he backed off from that position. I
am not sure why. But I think that was the right position. And
guaranteed, if the FTC goes forward tomorrow with Title II, you
won't be able to have that level of customization.
Mr. Shimkus. I have been told to make sure I answered the
same way. I am not sure why, but I think I know why. Rick, you
have looked at the European use of broadband, and it is
obviously a different way of handling that. Obviously the
concern and part of this debate is that by moving into Title
II, we may be falling into the same trap as the European
community. Can you address that?
Mr. Boucher. The Internet Innovation Alliance with which I
am affiliated, did a study which we published about 3 weeks
ago. The results of that are on the Alliance's Web site. And in
that study, we took a close look at the broadband performance
of Europe versus the United States. We did that in parallel to
the regulatory structures that prevail in Europe and also in
the United States.
In the United States we have historic light touch
regulation going back about a decade now for broadband, and
that light touch regulatory environment has been very welcoming
to investment.
In the European Union for about the same period of time,
going back to about 2002, they have had a more intrusive
regulatory regime characteristic of their regime and most of
the member states of the EU is something called unbundling and
least access over the last mile. And that basically means that
competitors are welcomed on to the incumbent's network at a set
price, at a regulated rate.
The history is pretty clear that in the European Union that
least access requirement has impeded investment, and on
virtually every measure of Internet capability, the European
Union is behind the United states, behind in access to
broadband capabilities on the part of the public, behind in
terms of speed, behind in investment on both the wired and
wireless side and even the European Commission has now
concluded that the reason their performance is lagging is
because of the intrusive regulatory structure that they have
and has recommended to the member states that for next
generation networks, the fiber optic deployments, the gigabit
level networks that are only now beginning to come to Europe,
even though we have them more commonly in the United States,
that the member states should not apply the least access
regime, saying that to do so would impede investment.
So the simple conclusion we reach in our study is that at
the very time when we appear to be moving now toward Europe in
terms of a regulatory posture with Title II reclassification.
Europe is now moving our way and lightening up its regulatory
structure. Now, the FCC is proposing to forbear from imposing
least access, but I will be very surprised if Title II is
adopted, if you don't see some competitive carriers suing,
saying that the FCC did not have an adequate record to
undertake that level of forbearance and saying that now that
Title II applies, there has to be least access. Rob Atkinson
earlier said that Title II is going to create a lot of
uncertainty. This is yet another example of where I think it
will.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman's time expired. We now go to Mr.
Yarmuth for 5 minutes.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Rick, it is good to
see you. Thanks to all the panelists. Now we have heard
arguments that the FCC's net neutrality rules will make
Internet speeds offered to American consumers as slow as those
in Europe. But according to Akamai's most recent State of the
Internet Report, average U.S. Internet speeds ranked behind
what consumers can get in Moldova and 20 other countries.
I will address this to Mr. Kimmelman. Do you think that
American broadband consumers are getting a good deal as
compared to their European counterparts?
Mr. Kimmelman. Thank you, Mr. Yarmuth. I think it is really
hard to do apples-to-apples comparison of the U.S. and Europe.
Some of their rules are European Union-wide. Some of them are
nation-specific. So it is a bit tricky.
But in general, there are some policies they are imposing
that are much more government driven, that much more come out
of a single provider monopoly environment, and they can keep
prices low and they can open up their platforms. And then they
have other problems.
And I think the better way to think about it is can we do
better here with our speeds and with our deployment, and I
think the answer is clearly yes. I don't think it is to follow
a European model as such, and I don't think Title II is
anywhere near the same as what most of the Europeans have done.
But I think the goal of actually pushing up speeds of reaching
higher for what has now become this essential platform for
economic and social growth in our society, absolutely, yes. We
should be pushing as hard as possible.
Mr. Yarmuth. Some of your fellow panelists seem to take a
different view of the current state of consumer choice in the
American broadband market. I know in my district, there is one
provider that dominates the market. Essentially that is the
only game in town. What is your view on the level of broadband
competition our constituency currently enjoy?
Mr. Kimmelman. I think there are a number of different
measurements that are being used. The FCC is now pushing the
envelope to really push for greater deployment. But by anything
other than a snail's pace, we lack robust competition in our
broadband market, particularly for the delivery of video
quality services. And so often one provider, sometimes two. Mr.
Barton I guess is lucky to have, fortunate to have more. Some
people can use wireless for a variety of services but usually
not the most robust video delivery system.
So we suffer from a very significant problem and lack of
competition.
Mr. Yarmuth. And what about the issue of cost versus
quality and service? How do we rate in terms of what consumers
pay for quality video?
Mr. Kimmelman. Well, again I hate to say anything too
definitive because different countries have different rules,
different frameworks. But there is no doubt there are some
countries that have faster speeds and better quality. And I
would just urge the committee to look at what are the policies
that go with those that actually deliver that. Sometimes it is
with greater government involvement, and that is something to
actually consider as a matter of tradeoff.
Mr. Yarmuth. Just as a matter of principle, if you have one
provider with very little regulation, then the odds of getting
good service at a reasonable cost are lower than if you had
either multiple providers in a vibrant competition or some kind
of heavy-handed regulation.
Mr. Kimmelman. Absolutely. And I will just point out that
going way back in history, we did have more of the open market
that Mr. Atkinson was talking about, and it was bedlam. There
was a refusal to interconnect in the early 1900s which led to
the development of the AT&T monopoly with a set of public
obligations that came with it.
So obviously a different timeframe, but I just raise the
admonition. The economics of that could still be problematic,
that interconnection is not something that has traditionally
worked well in a totally free-market environment.
Mr. Yarmuth. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey,
Mr. Lance, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Atkinson, in your
testimony you eschew the term net neutrality in favor of a more
generic term, network policy. You say, and I quote, any network
policy for the 21st century recognizes that the Internet is not
inherently neutral and that while some forms of traffic
differentiation can be anti-consumer or stifle innovation,
other forms may enable innovative new services. And I would
like you to elaborate. Perhaps that might be in healthcare or
educational fields, but I ask for your expertise into how this
could further innovation.
Mr. Atkinson. So I think one of the things that has been
striking about this debate is the absence of the voice of
network engineers. The Internet has never been neutral, and it
is not neutral now. In the Internet engineering space, there
are different priorities that network traffic receives because
frankly, if your email goes and you get it 50 milliseconds
late, you don't notice and you don't care. But if your two-way
video with your doctor is 50 milliseconds late, you basically
cannot have that conversation with your doctor. Fifty
milliseconds is way too long.
So the idea that we would treat all traffic the same is
essentially an anti-consumer. It is going to stifle these kinds
of innovations. If I can just make one quick point about the
question on competition, we released a report last year called
The Whole Picture where we looked at competition. Using the
OECD data, we have the third most-competitive intermodal
broadband market in the world. We are almost tied with Korea
and Canada. We have more intermodal competition, in other
words, two providers serving each home, than any other country.
The reason there are a few countries ahead of us like Japan,
like Korea, is really two factors. They have very high
population density. They are serving apartment buildings
largely. Super-easy to do. And secondly, they have put in
massive government subsidies. Now, we can have an argument
about whether that is a good policy or a bad policy, but many
of these countries have used public monies from tax incentives
and grants.
So this notion that somehow we are lagging behind because
of the light touch regulation I think is mistaken.
Mr. Lance. Thank you and I appreciate that point. You said
in your testimony the almost certain legal challenges to the
FCC's Order and the uncertainty that would in turn create as
evidence that a legislative route would be better than the
FCC's reclassifying broadband under Title II. How long do you
think the legal challenge would last if this were to occur?
Mr. Atkinson. I imagine it would begin quite soon, and I
would agree with Congressman Boucher, I think you are talking
3, maybe 4 years before we would end up with any sign of real
decision and certainty, whether this we can do a go or no-go.
Mr. Lance. Thank you, and others on the panel are certainly
willing to----
Mr. Boucher. Let me just----
Mr. Lance. Yes, thank you, Congressman. Yes.
Mr. Boucher. Just to look at the most recent decision in
this space. It was the Verizon decision of the D.C. Circuit.
Mr. Lance. Yes, sir.
Mr. Boucher. It invalidated the FCC's 2010 Open Internet
Order.
Mr. Lance. Yes.
Mr. Boucher. More than 3 years from the time the suit was
filed until the decision was handed down. You know, my point is
that puts us into the next presidential administration. If
there is a Republican FCC at that point, the network neutrality
for all practical purposes is gone. There will no longer be
network neutrality assurances. Those who strongly support
network neutrality should be looking for greater permanence. A
statutory alternative offers that.
Mr. Lance. And regarding the former case, did that go, sir,
to the Circuit Court here at the DC----
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Lance. And of course, in this situation, there is the
potential that it could be appealed further and the Supreme
Court might grant, sir, and that would even be a longer period
of time.
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Mr. Lance. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Downes, you have cited in
your testimony how network management technologies could exist
regarding oversight of the FCC. Do you believe that this will
lead to reduced investment and innovation on the part of ISPs
in broadband networks?
Mr. Downes. Well, it depends I think on how far the FCC
goes now or in the future in terms of this public utility
regime. Obviously we have investment in our public utilities
including the wireline telephone network, but it is clearly not
at the same pace and at the same froth level as what we have
seen in the last 20 years under the light touch regime.
Mr. Lance. Thank you, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back 16
seconds.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time. The chair now recognizes Ms. DeGette next up.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, as a
supporter of net neutrality, I have been glad to see that the
latest debate has led to a consensus around principles of
access to lawful content, no harmful discrimination, and
transparency. These are really the core principles that have
been laid out, both in the Republican draft and also in
Democratic proposals, and also the White House is in favor of
this and most importantly maybe is what our constituents expect
when they use the Internet. But of course, the constituents
expect much more than just an open Internet. They expect faster
speeds, affordable prices, and access to new and innovative
content.
So for the last decades, the virtuous cycle of investment
and innovation have given consumers these advantages as well. I
know there is disagreement among the panel about the best way
to implement net neutrality, but I want to step back to the
core net neutrality principles, and I want to ask each member
of this panel the same question. And this can be answered yes
or no. Are the net neutrality principles of access to lawful
content, no harmful discrimination, and transparency if
properly implemented compatible with the continued investment
necessary to give consumers the broadband experience they
expect? Mr. Boucher?
Mr. Boucher. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. Mr. Kimmelman?
Mr. Kimmelman. Absolutely, yes.
Ms. DeGette. Mr. Atkinson?
Mr. Atkinson. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. And Mr. Downes?
Mr. Downes. Yes, especially the way you phrased it, yes.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. So I am glad that we all agree that
strong net neutrality can be an unambiguous win for consumers.
I want to--do you want me to ask this?
Mr. Lujan. If----
Ms. DeGette. OK.
Mr. Lujan [continuing]. You want to yield.
Ms. DeGette. I will yield--let me ask one more question.
Then I will yield to you if that is OK. Mr. Lujan has an
excellent question that he wants to ask. Mr. Kimmelman, some
have suggested that the power of the free market is sufficient
to protect the open Internet, but in your testimony you pointed
out that some of the biggest ISPs have admitted there is a
business advantage to violating open Internet principles. Is
this merely a theoretical concern or have we seen cases of
business actually trying to gain an advantage on their
competitors by violating net neutrality principles?
Mr. Kimmelman. We have seen examples, Ms. DeGette.
Fortunately we have had rules in place or we have had rules
proposed for a long period of time that have very effectively
disciplined most market behavior. And so we haven't seen a lot,
but we have seen this and it is very simple. It can be
advantageous to the bottom line to favor one's own content, to
favor one's own preferential relationships in content providers
to make more money. And so there is nothing nefarious about it.
It is a natural economic incentive----
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Kimmelman [continuing]. For these ISPs to pursue
suction actions.
Ms. DeGette. Thanks. Of course, Congressman Boucher, we all
agreed up here after your testimony that we should just hire
you as a mediator to work out this legislation. So I want to
ask you. You said we need to have narrow bipartisan
legislation, but you single out the network neutrality
principles as a key non-negotiable element. So why do you think
the debate has moved past negotiations over network neutrality
principles?
Mr. Boucher. I think very simply because both sides now
have quite a bit of leverage, and when both sides have leverage
roughly equal, and I think that is the situation today, it is
the optimal circumstance for legislating.
There are two key principles that really matter here, and
the first of these is that the Republican offer for imbedding
strong network neutrality principles in the statute be accepted
by Democrats. In return for that, we ought to be continuing to
treat broadband by the proven method and that is an information
service subject to Title I with light regulation. We have had
that for a decade, and we have developed the most capable
Internet by virtually every measure that exists anywhere in the
world. If you add all of our ecosystem of the Internet
together, it is the envy of the world. Let us not upset that
very workable formula. Keep Title I in place. Those are the two
key principles of legislation.
Ms. DeGette. Thanks.
Mr. Boucher. And I think the fact that Republicans have
moved as far toward the Democratic position as they have is
really a major development. It is noteworthy, and it is because
of the leverage the Democrats now have as a consequence of the
reclassification decision.
Ms. DeGette. Thanks. And I yield the balance of my time for
follow-up to Mr. Lujan.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much. I thank the lady from
Colorado. Mr. Atkinson, something that you said earlier caught
my attention. You said in regards to Mr. Boucher that that Mr.
Boucher had valid issues regarding the Republican discussion
draft. Can you expound on that?
Mr. Atkinson. Well, I am not in a position to go into a
significant amount of detail, but I think there are 2 key
points there. One is there are valid issues because there are
no Democrats who supported that. And so you cannot get this
bill passed with the President signing it unless there is some
compromise. So I think that is point number one. Point number
two is the FCC--I think the bill could go slightly further
giving the FCC some authority. Now what I think the bill
rightly does, under 706 for example, there us unlimited
authority. 706, you can use that to justify pretty much
anything, and that is clearly too broad and was clearly too
broad when it was passed in '96.
So there needs to be some constraints on the FCC in our
view, but also at the same time they need some abilities to be
able to go out and effectively police issues.
Mr. Boucher. If I may, Mr. Lujan, since you were asking
about my thoughts and if the Chair will just indulge me for a
moment, I am going to take issue a little bit with what Mr.
Atkinson just said about 706. I did note at the outset that I
had some issues with the Republican draft. I am going to be
very candid to say that I think when the draft suggests that
Section 706 not be deemed an affirmative grant of authority to
the FCC, that does go too far. And that is not a necessary
provision in order either to assure that we have strong network
neutrality principles in the statute or to continue the light
touch regulatory treatment that broadband enjoys today.
So as a starting point while Democrats sit down with
Republicans to negotiate an agreeable statutory formulation, I
would hope Republicans would say, you know, that does go fairly
far. We acknowledge your concerns. We are willing to take that
provision out. To me that would be a sensible step to take.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman's time, gentlelady's time, has
expired, and we appreciate the comments from former member,
former chairman. At least we are having those discussions with
you. Mr. Collins for 5 minutes.
Mr. Collins. I want to thank the witnesses today. It seems
as though the discussion now has moved from net neutrality to
Title II because we have all coalesced around the concept of
net neutrality. So Mr. Atkinson, you brought up the point that
you are fairly certain litigation is the next step absent
congressional legislation. I think I heard Mr. Downes say that
could be 2-plus years. So I am a private-sector guy, an
entrepreneur. You make investments based on as much certainty
as you can get. That is kind of a rhetorical statement. And as
you introduce uncertainty, doesn't mean it is all or nothing.
Some would say, well, isn't there going to be investment? Well,
sure there is. But the more investment I think the better to
certainly grow broadband and the others. We want more
investment, not less. It is my belief as a private-sector guy,
uncertainty brings less investment than certainty. And as I now
look at where we are with the upcoming rule as we understand it
from the FCC, it is disappointing to say the least that the FCC
in what they are going to do, relative to Title II, the
consequences of what I call that overreach will be uncertainty.
And with that, less investment than otherwise. It doesn't mean
no investment but less investment, and that is not a good thing
which is why I think I am very happy to hear a lot of
consensus. It is the role of Congress to push forth a bill. If
we do so, we do it in a bipartisan way that should trump what
the FCC is going to do.
And so Mr. Atkinson, I would like to talk a little more
about the litigation piece, where you see it coming, how
quickly you see it coming, and if you agree with me that in the
arena of litigation absent something else, there will be less
investment than more.
Mr. Atkinson. I do agree with you. It won't be catastrophic
but at the margin there will be likely less investment if we go
down this path.
I also would like to point out the uncertainty, really, I
think is for both sides on this debate. I mean, there is a
legitimate argument I think that the advocates of net
neutrality make that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or other
offers, they need some level of certainty. You know, are they
going give me 5 years to know? Carriers do this. Totally agree
with this. Carriers need certainty. My concern with Title II
and what the Commission is doing is it really is not providing
certainty. It is providing certainty in a way for maybe a year
or 2 or 3, but don't forget. We have an election coming up, and
just say for the hypothetical, 50/50 chance. That means you
have a 50/50 chance that you are not going to have any rules
I agree with you on the legal challenge. I think what we
will see, as Mr. Downes said, rent-seeking from particular
carriers with particular interests or other groups who will go
in and say, you know what? We can gain a slight advantage over
our competitors if we challenge the FCC on this particular
component. And that is perfectly reasonable for them to do. It
just will gum up the entire process.
Mr. Collins. Now, as I understand it, there is something
around 1,000 provisions in Title II, and we have heard rumors
anyway that they are going to forbear on this one, this one,
and another one? Maybe forbear on the ROI as we limit returns
on electric utilities, true monopolies that they would forbear
on that piece which would be the death of the Internet if they
decided the rate of return could be 6 percent or something like
that. But with a thousand provisions, and we don't know which
ones they will forbear on or not. Isn't it also in the
uncertainty realm once they have Title II, they forbear now, a
year from now, 2 years from now a different president. They
decide not to forebear. So I will go back again. I am
encouraged to hear I think almost a coalescing. We need
congressional legislation on net neutrality. Title II is just a
wet blanket on it, and perhaps that is part of the incentive
that has brought us together. Well, let us not question that.
We are I think more together than not. But especially, would
you agree that those thousand provisions and forbearing or not
is really what is going to have this gummed up?
Mr. Atkinson. I would definitely agree with that, that this
is going to provide anything but certainty.
Mr. Collins. Mr. Downes, any comments in our last 30
seconds?
Mr. Downes. Yes, while I agree with Mr. Atkinson, and as I
say, I am just baffled by the Chairman's decision here because
as he himself said, when the DC circuit ruled in the Verizon
case, it provided him a roadmap and an invitation to reenact
the 2010 rules under Section 706. It was, you know, certainly
not without legal risk but certainly nothing compared to the
legal risk now of Title II and all the forbearance proceedings
that will go with it.
Mr. Collins. All right. I want to thank all the panel
today. I yield back, Mr. Chairman, my last 10 seconds.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time. And now we turn to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
I had been involved in another hearing, a Joint Subcommittee
hearing downstairs. And so I have not been able to participate
as fully as I would like. But the time that I have been here,
this has been quite interesting to me. I certainly want to take
a moment to join in with the chorus of welcoming our esteemed
colleague, Chairman Boucher back again. Your time on this
subcommittee where I served with you was really an era of
enlightenment for me. So I really want to thank you so much for
your contributions, and I wish that we were spending as much
time on reforming program carriage rules as we are on these
issues that we are discussing, net neutrality and associated
issues.
Reforming carriage rules especially as it relates to
independent networks. I think that is something that we need to
get to. That said, a free and open Internet with unfiltered
access is what I believe we all want. You believe the Title II
reclassification is not a viable solution in addressing net
neutrality. In your years as chairman of this subcommittee, do
you really believe that the FCC will be able to forbear all of
the onerous provisions from Title II?
Mr. Boucher. Thank you very much, Mr. Rush, and thank you
for your kind words and your words of welcome as I return to
the committee to offer some views.
I think it is challenging for the FCC to undertake
forbearance without the development of a complete record that
justifies each of the forbearance steps. And the FCC's record
in developing its forbearance decisions is really pretty thin.
My guess, and I am just guessing, is that a lot of the basis of
the litigation that is going to be upcoming is going to be
challenging the absence of an adequate record for the FCC to
take its various actions in association with this
reclassification, forbearance among those actions.
So the short answer to your question is I think Chairman
Wheeler is trying to forbear from the most onerous provisions
of Title II such as tariffing requirements, rate regulation,
least access and unbundling. He is making a serious effort to
do that. I think his decision to do that is going to be
significantly challenged in court, and we don't know what the
outcome can be.
Coming back to my core point today, that is yet another
reason that it is in the interest of everyone to use this
moment to provide permanent protection for network neutrality,
to do so in a statute, and also in that statute continue the
light touch Title I treatment that has been so successful here
for the last decade.
Mr. Rush. You point out that the Republican discussion
draft would codify transparency requirements and prohibit
blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. What is your
position on including a ban on zero rating practices?
Mr. Boucher. I am going to forgo dissecting the legislative
draft in any detail because I think that is uniquely the
responsibility of the subcommittee, and there are clearly
provisions in the legislative draft that ought to be open to
discussion and negotiation as long as in the end what is
achieved is the embedding of network neutrality principles and
light touch regulation. This subcommittee will perform a great
service.
So I would leave to the bipartisan conversation a
discussion of the specific elements that are in the draft
legislation.
Mr. Rush. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Ms. Eshoo. I appreciate the gentleman yielding the
remainder of his time. I think it is very important to raise
the issue when it comes to legislation that there not be an
automatic assumption that because there is the recognition that
these three items are mentioned in the bill that they are
automatically banned. There are problems in the legislation
because there is no follow-up by the agency that has
jurisdiction. In fact, the agency is prohibited on behalf of
the American people to implement these so-called prohibitions.
So there is a distance to go, and this really needs to be
addressed if there is ever any hope--and no one has raised this
from the panel, and it is a very important item I think for all
of us to know. There was something raised earlier about
thousands of things in Title II. There are actually, what, 47
sections in Title II with only a handful that in my view need
to be used relative to the regulations.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to
submit a letter for the record from the Internet Freedom
Business Alliance that supports the action the FCC is taking
tomorrow on net neutrality.
Mr. Walden. Of course. Without any objection.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you very much.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. Yes. And I must just respond to my colleague.
There are actually a thousand, exactly a thousand provisions
within the CFRs. That is where the rules are. That is the
reference I believe Mr. Collins was making. And as for our
draft legislation, the FCC would have complete and total
enforcement capability to enforce the law. And so I would
disagree with the characterization by my colleague.
And I would ask unanimous consent to submit for the record
a number of items including a story quoting the Chief Operating
Officer, Mike Sievert of T-Mobile where he says while there is
nothing in there that gives us deep concern about our ability
to continue executing our strategy, he said the
reclassification is not the most desirable approach. Without
objection.
We have a series of documents concerned with the partisan
Title II approach including editorial from the Washington Post,
a letter signed by Mark Cuban and others to the Commission.
Some other publications I think have been shared with the
minority, and without objection those will be in. We have some
documents regarding people's views affecting small business
from Barbara Espen, Counsel for the American Cable Association
and ex parte that we would submit for the record.
Consumer Impact I believe is the next one from the
Progressive Policy Institute that as much as $11 billion per
year might be put on consumers' backs as a result of Title II
reclassification, and we have information for the record
regarding successful U.S. approach with European history with
approach the FCC plans to take, a number of articles and
statements. And I think that is the bulk of our submissions for
the record. Without objection they will be submitted as well.
We thank our witnesses for your clarity to this issue and
for your sharing your comments. We look forward to see what the
Commission does and eventually actually having the opportunity
to read the 332 alleged pages of whatever it is they are going
to vote on tomorrow. So with that, the committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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