Apr 17, 2008

Stanford Professor Larry Lessig was among those speaking at today's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing on broadband network management practices. Following introductory remarks by the five FCC commissioners, Chairman Kevin Martin turned it over to Professor Lessig.

Below is a paraphrased excerpt from his talk:

The transparent, open, anybody-can-do-anything nature of the Internet gave us enormous economic value. Before we allow the Internet to change, the burden should be on those who would change its architecture. We should be essentially conversative here where conservative is a small 'c'...an example is the electricity grid. Point is we would need a very strong demonstration from people other than the coin-operated experts that tend to populate Washington these days that this is in fact right. That we would advance economic growth with this change. 

We should be skeptical.  We should have a kind of Missouri attitude here -- show me that innovation won't be harmed from this change...Show me competition will continue. And until you show me that, don't allow this to change.

While many people have tried to demand of network owners that they show the benefit from the change, network operators have said it's too hard to do...They used to emphasize that there wasn't a problem here. But even if there weren't a problem here right now, this perspective misses an important point: Here in the Valley, venture capitalists now are investing money in the future. And when they invest that money in the future, they invest asking a single question: what will the world look like then when this technology needs to be deployed and profit made from this technology.

And uncertainty about what that world will look like then raises the costs of these new technologies and therefore lowers the investment in these technologies. Now. Not five years from now, but now. If they believe the platform will be controlled tomorrow, there will be less investment today.  

This is why, for almost 10 years, we've been asking the FCC to make a clear statement of policy about this critical infrastructure. Asking the FCC and Congress too to make a clear statement that what we used to call the end-to-end principle, what we now call net neutrality, is a core principle of this infrastructure. One that providers would look to when they select the business model that they will deploy Internet technology under. One that leads them to a consistent policy, driving toward deploying the kind of broadband that facilitates open innovation and competition.

If the FCC did this, my view is the businesses would follow. It's cheaper, more rational to follow this clear statement than play the game of trying to undermine that clear policy statement.

Tags: FCC, Larry Lessig, net neutrality, network management, Stanford