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i'd like to welcome reid hunt to knowledge at wharton today reid is a former chairman of the federal
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communications commission i want to ask you what you think about the president president obama recently coming out in
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favor of net neutrality i ask you as a former chairman of the fcc and uh obviously knowledgeable about these
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issues but also in the context there's a professor here kevin wereback who has
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said along with others that the real danger to the internet ecosystem in the us is the
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dearth of competition at the broadband provider level so in light of all that what what was your what's your view on
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net neutrality and what's what's happened based on the president's statements so
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there are two things about the president's statement the first is that he made his statement on youtube this is
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a case where the medium is the message he was basically saying you see me on youtube here
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everybody in america ought to have the capability to get access to this content or any other
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content they want without having to ask the permission of the internet service provider
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he was basically saying without without using these words the internet service provider should not
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be a sensor or an editor or a gatekeeper who says what website you can get to or
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whether or not when you get to that website you can actually watch the video in a high enough quality
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he was basically saying there shouldn't be any discrimination imposed on your
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personal preferences by the fact that you're limited to just one or two companies that are giving you
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internet service so it should access like a telephone line in the old days and you can call anyone you want is that
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the idea that's basically what he said um so that was pretty cool the medium
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was the message right uh and the second thing he said was he didn't use exactly these words but i
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think this was also pretty pretty clear fcc you have had a lot of trouble getting the courts to accept your rules
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and you've clued together lots of different compromises just say the following
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there is one single common medium of communication for the united states and from the world and it
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is called the internet it doesn't need a lot of rules but from time to time we might need the fcc to
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establish some rules that will guarantee just two things everybody will have access to this
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medium and number two when you have access to it you get to go to the websites that
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you want to and you get to do the picking that's what he told the fcc now what
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that means legally is please invoke title ii of the law but his message was not meant to be
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bogged down in the legal niceties he was saying just do it declare it title ii you don't need that many rules but you
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do need to give a guarantee to all americans that they can share as a community in the internet and they can
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get to the websites and to the content that they want to reach now that addresses the consumer accessing the
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internet behind the internet you have providers you know the netflix and others of the
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world who want sort of unrestricted access or they don't they don't want to
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be in a slow lane does the president's comments also affect that side of the
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internet also yes the president in effect is saying to the fcc suppose that the internet service
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provider cuts a sweetheart deal with some particular content company and the purpose of that deal is to
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exclude some competitor to that content company suppose that uh the internet service provider says i
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like nbc and abc but i don't i'm going to give them the ability to use the internet to
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broadcast their material not just over the year but i don't like the local broadcasters
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so much so i'm going to keep that person out of the package the president was saying you can't do
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that that's another way to discriminate against different content providers and i want
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everyone to have the chance to sell on the internet and everyone to have the chance to buy on the internet at the
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same speed always or he's saying roughly the act quality of the access needs to
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be approximately equal okay uh anything else that we that that we should learn from that statement
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what's likely to happen i know there's been it's been difficult for congress to
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come to any agreement on on any sort of rules and to give the fcc much direction
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there's been conflicting directions that have been trying to be there are five
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commissioners at the fcc uh three are democrats two are republicans i would imagine
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that the president doesn't expect the republican commissioners to agree with
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his position unfortunately as pretty much everyone in the united states knows the president
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has really had a hard time getting republicans in congress or at the fcc or in the senate to agree with him on any
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topic and i know that he's tried and he's tried and he's tried so the president
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then really needs the three democrats at the fcc to listen to pay attention to to inwardly digest and
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ultimately to decide to agree that the president is right i think that they will
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so um looking at the long game you think that this is a game changer moment i do i don't think it has tremendous uh
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economic significance for any of the content companies or any of the internet service providers
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they aren't right now basing their business plans on discrimination but you just want to be
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careful to make sure as a government that if somebody gets unchallenged to monopoly position in
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internet service or builds a tremendous vertical integration business where content and conduit are
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combined that you could step in and protect the little guy against the powerful and
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that's why it's right for the fcc to declare that it does have the jurisdiction
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to look out for everybody in the country if needed so it's providing a level or will provide if
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all is approved a level of certainty that's been missing this regulation that
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we're talking about is called title ii and some people will say to title two or
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not to title two that is the question i would say that really for the agency it is to be or not to be
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if you're an agency and you don't have a jurisdictional basis you don't have the
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legal authority to pass rules then you're out of business thanks very much you