isen.blog

Chairman Mike sure sounded good at UCSD on December 9. The audio/video stream is here. Juxtapose what Commissioner Copps said in the previous article with Powell's words here:

I have never fought so hard for something in my life as I fought for UltraWideBand to get commercialized. Over the objections of the Defense Department, over the objections of a lot of people who had very deep concerns about this stuff, some established providers, incumbents who would have loved to see that technology get killed in its grave or kept out of the competitive sphere. *snip* It is like planting dynamite charges, you don't have to blow up the whole bridge, you can put one charge on the right span, and it will come down. And that's what I think a lot about: 'Is VoIP the thing, that put on the right span, is going to bring this thing down in a way that's constructive? Is WiFi? Is UltraWideBand?' And that's the way we think about it, so it looks little sometimes at the start, but when you extrapolate, you realize 'Oh my God, this is huge', like 'if this is right, the whole thing is coming down.' *snip* When I knew it was over was when I downloaded Skype [www.skype.com], when the inventors of Kazaa are distributing for free a little program that you can talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic, and it is free. Its over. You can pretend it is not, you can fight these fights, but it is over.

So Powell believes that market forces and technological progress will trump a regulatory approach. And Copps believes that common carrier (non-discrimination) regulations at the transport layer are critical for net openness. Neither addresses the validity of the other view.

Later in the discussion, Powell says

The idea that pro-regulation is somehow pro-entrant or pro-consumer is often dramatically exaggerated. What it is usually about is protecting the vested interests of the incumbent.

However, he doesn't address the exception, rules that guarantee open access, for example. Copps, on the other hand, pays lip service to what made the Internet great, but he takes its greatness as given; he does not actually address the technological miracles that made it what it is today.

Thanks, Peter Ecclesine, for links to Powell conversation!