'Net Neut' activists: Are you just POSEURS, or do you want to Get Something Done?

You'll have to go to the Hill, so deal with it

America's uniquely odd broadband

Much of the enflamed rhetoric from the USA on Net Neutrality baffles Europeans. For the sake of argument let's agree some common ground: there should be More choice of Better broadband for Americans and think about how to achieve it.

Here both sides of this debate come a bit unstuck.

Why would last-mile regulation be equivalent to "Obamacare" - as one GOP Senator claimed - when Europeans have managed to do "last-mile" regulation without the sky falling in?

The answer is historical. In Europe, and much of the rest of the world, the last mile has been owned by the state, giving it a different character of authority. In the USA, the last mile was owned by a regulated private monopoly, giving the state and the courts a quite different regulatory relationship.

The 1934 regulations so much discussed this week were the first coherent and comprehensive response by the state to Bell's monopoly over American telephone infrastructure. Even after the Bells became Baby Bells, and then coalesced back into Verizon and AT&T, they remained private. Things get even stranger when you consider that the local loop is actually regulated in the US.

It's just that we have more of an illusion of a market here in the UK than the USA, which under Michael Powell's FCC leadership decided that there would be cable and DSL. The old Baby Bells lobbied and successfully argued that wholesaling their copper on a European model would leave them disadvantaged against cable, so the local DSL ISPs (like Sonic.net in LA and San Francisco), all but disappeared a few years ago. Here in the UK, the wholesale price is regulated and there have been more incentives for competitors to invest in their own, new infrastructure.

Similarly the notion that Americans are "trapped" by a monopoly and lack a functioning marketplace strikes Europeans as equally puzzling. Fully 89 per cent of Americans can choose between two providers - and more than half can choose between three. Uncapped 4G mobile LTE is the envy of most Europeans. But if you listen to a Neutrality supporter venting, you'd be forgiven for thinking hardly anyone has any choice at all. When you suggest (as I regularly do) greater grassroots political action to enforce consumer rights - such as organising switching parties, or enforcing existing business regulation, Neutrality supporters suddenly find lots of reasons to stay on the couch, munching Doritos. Perhaps AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast have (and Lord knows they do naughty things now and then!) implanted chips in the minds of millions of Americans, physically preventing them from terminating their contracts? Perhaps they receive a small electric shock when the contract comes up for renewal.

Or, perhaps, venting online is about as active as many people want to get about the issue - since it avoids doing that politics thing of building alliances, persuading other people, and finding workable solutions. And calmly and rationally batting aside objections like "Obamacare". But perhaps it's less risky to remain righteous, than risk losing face even it means winning some real gains. This is plausible explanation; like so many other issues, Net Neutrality is all about signalling your concern and virtue to like-minded people. Neutrality is a badge, which says, "I get the Internet. I care."

And that's what Obama was signalling this week. He hates war, poverty, injustice - and Big Cable too, "unlike all you squares". (With apologies to Tom Lehrer). As Ted Dziuba wrote here in 2008, it's a business wrangle disguised as a civil rights crusade.

How about a something Congress can really pass?

Instead of genuine political engagement, Net Neutrality supporters are being sold a pup. What a shame, as there are tons of ideas for policies that can improve the market. Some I mentioned above; others include regulating consumer contracts so that switching is much easier. Where the choice is just two providers, they should be watched like hawks for evidence of collusion, price fixing and underinvestment. Amongst the more ambitious proposals you might not have heard about (because, remember, Reclassification is the Hack That Matters) are merging the business regulator (FTC) and the FCC to give much more powerful consumer protection.

What makes this week's debate so cynical is that, like most of the Culture Wars, it has been entirely avoidable. Net Neutrality has been terrific for the careers and reputations of some activists, and each round of agitation beefs up those mailing lists a little more. But the "Clever Hack" won't succeed without a fight in Congress. And while Big Telco this week suggests that nothing Congress passes would stand up to legal challenge, I don't agree. The actual real Obamacare did, after all.

Changing the law is a fight that's winnable if something practical (like LLU) is the goal. And it's an opportunity to ask how effectively Big Telco has invested in super fast broadband - surely a question that needs to be asked. It's just happens to be a fight that neither President Obama nor the Neutrality campaigners seem to have the courage to make.

The age old question that haunts every political activist hasn't gone away: do you want to be virtuous and ineffective? Or do you actually want to get something done? ®