The Internet in Communications Policy

Before the Internet was the policy. In 1966, before the first packets had been transmitted on the ARPANet, the FCC noted the curiosity of computers in the network. Some computers helped people communicate over the telephone network; some people used the telephone network to communicate with the computers. The FCC recognized that these big computers promised tremendous economic growth and transformation for society. How were these computers to be regarded; what should the policy be? In the Computer Inquiries, the FCC split the world not by technologies, but by the service delivered to the end user, and declared that the basic telecommunications service would be regulated for the benefit of the enhanced services. The Computer Inquiries were designed in order to ensure that basic services provided an open communications platform, available to all computer services on the same terms and conditions - enabling innovation and growth. With success came challenge. Internet services began to compete with traditionally regulated services. Internet services offered long distance communications, but were not regulated as long distance telephone services and were not required to pay metered, per minute access charges. In the 1980s, the FCC decided that Internet services were interstate under the jurisdiction of the FCC, not state PUCs, and that while interstate in nature, Internet services would be treated as if they were local, thereby avoiding a metered, per minute access charge (enabling the flat rate, all you can eat ISP fees introduced in the 1990s). With success came more challenge. The success of the dial-up Internet created demand for broadband. The Internet went from being an enhanced service over a communications network, to being the network itself. When the Internet was an enhanced service over a common carrier network, a subscriber could use the network to reach an ISP of choice. But broadband limited choice. In the 2000s, the FCC declined to impose Computer Inquiry type open access rules on the new broadband networks. Broadband services did not have to share their networks with competitors and therefore, it was believed, would have a greater incentive to build. With success came more challenge. Broadband Internet services were built, but the number of ISPs serving a customer dropped. When large broadband services began to block the use of competitive application services or specific content, and customers could not switch Internet access services, concern was expressed over discrimination. This gave rise to the Network Neutrality debate and the FCC's Open Internet Rules. This tutorial will review the history of the Internet in Communications Policy. It will explore how we got to where we are and how communications policy has struggled and evolved with the success of the Internet.