FCC commisionar Robert M. McDowell, a former teleco lobbyist appointed by Bush, attacked net neutrality in his Monday Post Op-Ed. McDowell took to the Post to make his argument since it seems that a majority of the other FCC commissionars are going to find that Comcast violated the law and broke net neutrality and needs to be punished.
Most ISPs are monopolistic and fail to compete in both service or price, simply taking in as much money as they can while only doing just enough to pretend they’re making an effort to deliver a service. McDowell defends this system, saying we have the strongest “internet economy” in the world–even though well-regulated internet in Europe and Asia is faster and cheaper. McDowell even defends Comcast, one of the worst offenders. Comcast jacks up prices and its customer service been ranked the worst of any company or agency in several surveys. As a virtual monopoly in many areas, Comcast needs to do little to compete. Comcast has made over three visits to my house, missing several other appointments, in the past few weeks and the internet still does not work properly. They charge me for services I never requested and pipe me through byzantine phone trees so that I can’t complain. Most people would see such a monopoly and call for reform; McDowell wants to give it more power. While Comcast controls price and service reliability, it doesn’t yet have control over the service content. McDowell wants to get rid of net neutrality so that Comcast controls this last aspect of internet access. With content controls, Comcast can not only hose its customers with monthly fees, it can nickel-and-dime them with usage fees. McDowell think say this is a good idea because he’s in the cable industry’s well-lined pockets or he may have a ideological, and clearly foolish, opposition to regulation.
McDowell’s piece is filled campfire ghost stories warning of dangerous government regulation. He alludes back to congestion problems in 1987 when the present internet was its infancy stage as ARPANET and NSFNET. McDowell says these problems were solved without the intervention of government politicians and bureaucrats. This is true, however, it’s only part of the story. ARPANET and NSFNET with both government projects. Government research helped build these important building blocks for the internet. The internet is a testament to the good work that government can do to coordinate and fund important research breakthroughs. Government is only a problem for the internet when it becomes involved through its worst aspects, lobbyists turned politicized bureaucrats.
