The usual suspects have been bleating to the FCC that wicked Internet access providers are trying to turn a profit.
Tech heavyweights explain how to destroy the Internet
… The best speech came from University of Virginia Law School Associate Professor Tim Wu, who cited actual examples of industry abuse worth regulating against. … He mentioned as well that broadband providers, Comcast in particular, have restricted or banned the use of virtual private networks (VPNs). The idea here is to charge the customer as a business user, rather than a home user, and extort extra money. Servers and VoIP have also been banned in places, to protect other services that the provider offers.
I’m afraid that whilst such activities may raise the ire of customers and create a lifelong loathing of their connectivity provider, they aren’t worthy of regulation. Price discrimination is a GOOD THING because on average it tends to reduce prices, even if some people suffer.
In the days of PTTs and Ma Bell, it was reasonable to restrain the mandated monopoly from exclusionary or discriminatory tactics. But if you’re looking for an explosion of wired and wireless connectivity possibilities, then those new entrants need a carrot of juicy profit to attract them to take a risk.
The role of government is firstly to ensure the customer has a clear understanding of what they are buying into. Only contracts freely entered into with clear terms and should be enforceable. Words like “broadband” and “Internet” in the advert should imply certain minimum functionality. Secondly, new entrants should be protected from predatory pricing of incumbents. And that’s it. Consumer protection and anti-trust.
If we’d had that rigorously enforced thirty years ago, there would have been no need to break up AT&T. The market would have done it for you. Of course, as we’ve seen with Microsoft, that isn’t easy to implement in practice. (Plus the astute observation at WTF!?! that the first imperative of regulators is to perpetuate the need for regulation.)
If the “tech heavyweights” don’t like capitalism, I’d rather they said it directly than try to regulate around it. Also, focusing energy on resolving symptoms rather than causes just diffuses the forces of communications freedom. And holds you up to ridicule for economic illiteracy, too.
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