Peace at Last

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Ars Technica reports: In the wake of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's major speech this morning supporting network neutrality, the responses have flooded in—and they're surprisingly positive, even from ISPs. AT&T even goes so far as saying it could support all six of the rules that Genachowski wants—as long as they're kept to wired networks.

For net neutrality backers, today's announcement was a major victory, and it was also no surprise that Internet companies like Google strongly support the move. But the ISP reaction was surprisingly muted—even, in some cases, fairly positive.

In one important sense, the "openness" advocates have already won the first round of the debate: the way the issue is framed. As you can see from the statements below, no companies will come out against the idea of being "open," at least when it comes to wired networks. Let's take a look.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) represents cable operators, but the first two lines of its response aren't necessarily what one might expect from its CEO: "Chairman Genachowski has given a very thoughtful speech about a complex and important set of policies," said Kyle McSlarrow. "As someone who almost 10 years ago was himself involved with an Internet startup, I applaud his vision of preserving an open Internet in order to promote entrepreneurship without permission."

What about Comcast, which was itself smacked down last year by the FCC for its BitTorrent shenanigans? "Comcast applauds Chairman Genachowski’s goal of ensuring that the Internet remains open as it is today, and we welcome the dialogue suggested by his comments."

Verizon isn't a fan of the new rules, but largely because the company is already quite open (it certifies all sorts of devices for use on its wireless network, Skype is allowed on its 3G data network, and it imposes no filtering on its wired network). A company representative said after the Genachowski speech that it was hard to see why the new rules were needed, but only because he sees little or no marketplace harm. What a far cry from places like Canada, where major ISPs gleefully throttle back P2P traffic for half the day.

As for AT&T, a giant in both the wired and wireless worlds, the company has no problem with network neutrality. If the FCC wants to turn its four existing principles into enforceable rules, go for it! Genachowski wants to add to more rules to the list, one for nondiscrimination and one for transparency? Not a problem.

"AT&T has long supported the principle of an open Internet and has conducted its business accordingly," said Jim Cicconi, the company's top legal affairs man. "We were also early supporters of the FCC's current four broadband principles and their case-by-case application to wired networks. To the extent that the chairman seeks to bolster the FCC's legal authority to enforce these principles, we would support him. We have also indicated publicly that, despite any compelling evidence of abuses that need correction, AT&T could also consider endorsing a fifth principle relating to actions that are unreasonably discriminatory and that cause material harm. Finally, we have never had concerns with disclosure or transparency regarding network management decisions so long as such requirements are reasonable."

Is this the same ISP industry we all know and love? It is, and that means that the "openness" lovefest comes with a set of caveats. Perhaps the biggest one comes courtesy of AT&T, which offers Genachowski everything he wants... so long as it doesn't apply to wireless.

"We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America, wireless services," continued AT&T's Ciccioni. "We have applauded this FCC for emphasizing that its regulatory decisions would be data-driven. We would thus be very disappointed if it has already drawn a conclusion to regulate wireless services despite the absence of any compelling evidence of problems or abuse that would warrant government intervention."

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