Straight Outta Comstock

Last week, one of my former bosses from COMPTEL--Earl Comstock (on behalf of his client, Data Foundry) --had a discussion with the FCC, including FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick, regarding the FCC's proposed "Third Way" approach to reclassifying broadband Internet transmission service as a "telecommunications service" under Title II of the Communications Act.  Here is a link to the ex parte materials Data Foundry filed with the Commission.  So, aside from the irony associated with two of the major protagonists in the Brand X decision (Austin Schlick from the FCC, and Earl Comstock for Brand X and Earthlink), almost 5 years from the date of the decision (June 27, 2005), now taking somewhat different positions than they took at the time, what's so interesting?

Well, first, if you know Earl at all, then you know better than to get into a discussion with him about Internet access classification, and you know that he has historically been one of the biggest champions of (his version of) net neutrality in the industry.  Seriously, Earl is the "Count of Classification"--he owns that subject.  Whether you agree with his policy conclusions (I don't, but will explain in a later post), you have to respect Earl's encyclopedic knowledge of the history and meticulous explanations of the current state of broadband Internet classification.  This is no joke.  If FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick had been offered a free trip to Cabo, on the condition that he only had to sit through a "presentation" on broadband Internet classification with Earl, Computer II would be the "Only Way"!

But this interesting personality piece aside, the Comstock/Data Foundry ex parte is so relevant because it is analytically correct.  What does this mean?  Quite simply, it means that one of the leading advocates of net neutrality, and Title II classification for broadband Internet access transmission services, believes the "Third Way," as described by the Commission thus far, is no way at all.  Why?

While most ex parte meetings are deadly boring, I would love to have been a fly on the wall for this one. Reading between the lines of what was filed, I'm guessing that Earl made clear, in his inimitable way, exactly what he thinks about what the Commission seems to be up to. In a nutshell, Earl probably told them that they're screwing things up. In Earl's view, the Commission can put broadband under Title II in one of two ways - a "wholesale path," or an "end user path." And the end user path, that the Commission appears to have set its sights on based on Justice Scalia's dissent in Brand X, is the wrong way. Earl correctly identifies the fatal weaknesses in the end user path (whether his analysis of the virtues of the wholesale path is valid is another matter). Those weaknesses are: (1) the Commission would likely have to conclude that all the layers of the OSI stack constitute "telecommunications": (2) that absent such a conclusion ISPs would be able to escape the classification simply by acting at the higher layers of the stack; and (3) that the end user path risks the extension of common carrier regulation to all providers of information services.

This last point probably deserves a little more explication. For the last forty years, the Commission has classified services that combine transmission with information processing as "enhanced" or "information services" subject to Title I. Earl's point is that if the Commission were to find here that such services in fact may constitute the offering of two services - an information service and a telecommunications service, this approach would potentially implicate all information services, which by definition are offered via telecommunications. Indeed if the Commission were to break Internet access up in this way via the end user path, all content providers that purchase Internet access in order to distribute digital goods (eBooks, music, movies, etc.) could be treated as "resellers" of the common carrier service that they purchase.

To further elaborate, let's consider a hypothetical.  Assume there is some source of cheap or free video content (maybe those now-goofy public safety/hygiene films from the '40s, '50s, and '60s).  You acquire a non-exclusive license to use these films, and create your own cool, funny, retro website.  You get a lot of hits, and want to ensure a good quality experience to your customer, but you aren't quite ready or willing to build/buy your own content delivery network.  But, why worry?  Because, under the interpretation that every information service contains a separable telecommunications service, any member of the public will be free to use the content delivery network (nothing more than transmission by another name) of a Netflix, Google Voice, eBay, or any other provider of Internet content--on just and reasonable terms.

Thus, to summarize, given all the things the FCC says it won't do in its "Third Way" reclassification, the only "telecommunications services" that can be delivered with a "light touch" are those services--which can be combined with computer processing--that the broadband ISPs feel like offering to the public.  This seems like simply replacing the prior "Title I" services with a "Title II" label.  Will a court really buy this "no regulation, re-regulation?"

So on the one hand, the label "telecommunications service" could be nothing more than just that--a different classification without a distinction from the previous classification.  On the other hand, if the Commission really wants to assert that each broadband Internet service has both an "information service" component, and a "telecommunications service" transmission component, then this classification will--if applied evenly--potentially be a Pandora's box, and every Internet service that relies on Internet access will, to some degree, be subject to common carrier regulation. 

In some respects, the Third Way might not be all bad.  Excessively regulatory?  To be sure.  Confiscatory?  Maybe . . . sometimes . . . but probably only for the politically weak or unpopular.  On the plus side, though, the USF contribution factor would drop to next to nothing.  Intercarrier termination rates would almost have to be set at zero across the board.  And, such an outcome might provide a little more certainty in the "real world" of telecommunications commerce. 

In the General Counsel's detailed justification of the "Third Way" as a necessary departure from the Commission's current Title I classification of broadband Internet access services, Mr. Schlick explains that, even if the FCC were successful at defending Title I ancillary jurisdiction, it would involve piecemeal regulation, protracted litigation, and "[t]he extended uncertainty would deprive investors, innovators, and consumers of needed clarity about the rules of the road." (p.3)  Huh?

Did the FCC find religion?  The logic of the "why" makes sense, but why should the FCC start now?  Given the Commission's persistent "non-classification" of VoIP, it's hard to get used to the idea that, all of a sudden, the Commission considers extended uncertainty over the regulatory treatment of an Internet service to be a bad thing.  I'm not criticizing the sentiment, or the effort, it's just that it might be a little misplaced. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the Commission's unblemished, 14 year record of not even attempting to classify VoIP, while constantly saddling VoIP with new piecemeal regulations (E911, USF contribution obligations, CALEA, etc.), has given rise to countless more litigation and uncertainty than could be expected from any Title I classification scheme designed to support net neutrality rules that have ended up in court . . . uh . . . at least once in 5 years.