LOS ANGELES — Delivering a blistering keynote speech at the Cable Show here Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler (right) forcefully restated his agency's commitment to net neutrality and warned U.S. cable operators not to go astray or else.
"Our goal is rules that will encourage broadband providers to continually upgrade service for all," Wheeler said. "We will follow the court's blueprint for achieving this, and I must warn you that we will look skeptically on exceptions."
Most notably, Wheeler, a long-time lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries who once headed the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), warned cable operators that he would not hesitate to punish them or other broadband providers if they violated the Commission's net neutrality policies. While he believes that the FCC's current course will end up producing effective rules for managing broadband networks, he said, that "does not mean I will hesitate to use Title II if warranted."
In invoking the U.S. government's Title II regulations, Wheeler was sending the strong message that he would move to reclassify broadband service as a common carrier service. Such a regulatory change would lead to much more heavier regulations of cable operators, telcos and other broadband providers.
Wheeler's strong tone speech clearly seemed to be in response to harsh recent criticism by public interest groups and others about the chairman's proposal to let broadband providers set aside and charge for network "fast lanes" for popular Internet video services like Netflix and YouTube. Telling cable operators to "put away the party hats," Wheeler tackled this issue head-on, declaring that, "If someone acts to divide the Internet between haves and have-nots, we will use every power at our disposal to stop it."
"If someone acts to divide the Internet between haves and have-nots, we will use every power at our disposal to stop it." – Tom Wheeler, FCC
A key concern in the debate over selling premium access to broadband networks is that no one has any visibility into how that capacity is split between the public Internet and private, managed services. As a result, critics fear that broadband providers could potentially wind up with great incentive to invest in and improve services for large premium customers like Netflix while letting network performance deteriorate for ordinary consumers.
Wheeler, however, made it very clear that he does not intend to let that happen. Noting out that there is very limited federal regulation of broadband right now, he stated that if providers don't deliver on their end of the bargain to offer high-quality service to consumers, the regulatory situation could change quite dramatically.
The FCC chairman also gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to municipal broadband efforts. "If municipal governments… want to pursue [selling broadband service], they shouldn't be inhibited by state laws," he said. "I believe the FCC has the power… to prevent state laws that ban competition from community broadband."
Time and again in his speech, Wheeler stressed his mantra of "competition, competition, competition." A bit ironically, though, show organized followed up Wheeler's address with a panel spotlighting Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge for their pending plans to divvy up significant control of the U.S. cable market between their two companies.
That inconvenient fact prompted Showtime CEO Matt Blank who joined the two top MSO executives on the panel, to joke, "It's great to be up here with the entire cable industry now."
– Staff
