I met with the US Representative Suzan DelBene last week at a breakfast meeting. She is a bright veteran of our industry and does yeoman’s work trying to find solutions in a congress constipated by partisan rhetoric. I’m grateful that she is able and willing to serve our state.

Among the many topics discussed, one that worries me in particular is Net Neutrality. While our US Congress fiddles around with political skirmishes, the FCC plans to implement a new rule that will have a dramatic impact on our industry and our economy. Rep. DelBene was adamant that it is not too late; she urged that each of us file a comment with the FCC.

So the call to action today is SPEAK YOUR MIND!

Click on this FCC link and post your comments. Remember, this is a public site – so be rational.

http://www.fcc.gov/comments and choose the top item 14-28

or send your comments directly via email to openinternet@fcc.gov

There are a lot of legal and technical nuances in the FCC proposal. Don’t get hung up on this. What matters to our industry and our economy is the outcome of any new FCC rules. And you can have an impact by declaring why kind of outcome you want.

What’s at stake? The FCC is proposing a “fast lane” on the Internet. This means that internet service providers will be able to charge website publishers a premium for faster pipes to the consumer. While on the surface this sounds like a simple economic case of allowing supply and demand to drive pricing, the repercussions are significant.

In an Internet with a “fast lane”, Disney, Amazon, Xbox, CNN, ESPN, and any other large scale website publishers will be able to pay for faster pipes to reach their customers. As a matter of competitive necessity, each of these companies will have no choice but to upgrade to the faster pipe.

Faster than whom is the issue. Any startup company trying to compete with an existing service will have to find additional capital to pay for the faster pipe. Until they do, startup sites will not perform in page load or data transfer as well as the larger company sites.

How much faster is this pipe? That’s the scary part to me. If the core principle is supply and demand drives pricing, then the more a company pays, the faster their pipe. ISPs will have a strong incentive to create a steep performance curve tied to fees, leaving startups on a internet country back road and larger companies paying ever more for data super highways.

Who benefits?

• Not Amazon or ESPN or Xbox – they will pay more for staying on par for competitive internet access.
• Not startups – they will end up with crappy performance or they have to raise more money to have the same competitive position they have today.
• Not Angel investors or VCs – they will have to invest more money into the same risky business venture with no additional return.
• Not consumers – who will get faster but more expensive Wimbledon and Spotify streaming, and will get less variety from entrepreneurs.
• ISPs don’t really benefit either – they may get a nice bump in near term profit, but will then have to invest heavily to compete on data transport speed, which is a commodity market without upside.

Whether you agree with my logic or not, please do speak your mind to the FCC. If we remain mute, then we allow bureaucrats to guess what we want. And then we all suffer the consequences. If you want a quick education on this topic from multiple viewpoints, check out these posts:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/fcc-and-net-neutrality-way-forward

https://www.ncta.com/positions/supporting-open-internet

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140701/06584527742/eff-changes-position-net-neutrality-recognizes-fcc-must-act-narrowly.shtml

SPEAK YOUR MIND!

http://www.fcc.gov/comments and choose the top item 14-28

or send your comments directly via email to openinternet@fcc.gov