## How to end the World Wide Wait

By William E. Kennard

The first message to be sent over the Arpanet, the forerunner to the

Internet, was neither as eloquent as Samuel Morse\'s \"what hath God
wrought\"

nor as practical as Alexander Graham Bell\'s \"Watson, come here. I need
you.\"

Rather, it consisted of two letters, \"L-O.\" Apparently, the
researchers

testing the system tried to send \"log-in,\" but the network crashed
before

they could finish typing.

From this inauspicious beginning 30 years ago we now have more than 130

million people world-wide sending e-mail, surfing the Web, watching

streaming video, listening to music and even making phone calls over the

Internet.

# 

# But as anyone who has ever gone on-line knows, the World Wide Web is too

often the World Wide Wait. To take full advantage of the Internet, we
need

\"broadband\" connections\--fatter pipes to handle the crush of
information and

complex applications now available.

A fierce battle has erupted over what to do with one of the possible

broadband connections: cable. Some fear that cable companies will get a
lock

on the broadband market, dictating who can connect to the system and
where

users can go once on it. Calling for \"open access,\" they want the
Federal

Communications Commission to step in and regulate the cable platform.

Recently, local cable franchising authorities have decided to make open

access a condition of doing business in localities from Portland, Ore.,
to

Broward County, Fla.

The quest for openness in the Internet is in line with the history of
this

medium\'s remarkable development. Indeed, the Internet\'s open protocols
as

well as FCC decisions not to regulate the Internet and to open up access
to

the phone network are at the heart of the network\'s growth. E-mail, the
Web

and Internet radio are only some of the applications that have been

developed and deployed in this open environment.

What we need to remember now is that no one could have predicted these

innovations. We cannot regulate against problems that have yet to

materialize in a market that has yet to develop. Moreover, we cannot
have

30,000 local cable communities trying to make their own predictions and

placing their own regulatory bets on the future.

Simply put, it\'s in the national interest to have a national broadband

policy. That is why the FCC has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a

pending Ninth Circuit case arguing that only the commission has
nationwide

authority over broadband providers. It is also why the FCC has decided
not

to intervene in this nascent broadband market. In doing so, we are
following

advice as old as Western civilization itself: First, do no harm\--a
high-tech

Hippocratic Oath.

Instead, we are taking steps to ensure that there are many competitors
in

the marketplace, not just cable. We\'ve made more spectrum available to

wireless operators. We\'ve made it easier for emerging competitive local

phone companies to plug into the existing phone network in order to
provide

high-speed Internet access using a promising new technology known as
digital

subscriber lines. And we\'ve decided to allow the cable companies to go
ahead

with their efforts to deploy broadband access without pre-emptive

regulation, even as we closely monitor the marketplace for
anticompetitive

behavior.

We believe that by giving all competitors the tools they need to
compete, we

can create a robust broadband marketplace in which the American consumer

will have many different options at competitive prices. Already, we are

seeing the fruits of this deregulatory policy: In just the second
quarter of

this year, the number of DSL subscribers doubled.

Internet users want and expect choice, and they will not be satisfied
unless

they get it. A national policy of openness and competition has brought
it to

them so far; it should be our policy for the future as well.

Mr. Kennard is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

*Published in the [Wall Street Journal]{.underline}, August 24, 1999.*

*Please contact the [Wall Street Journal]{.underline} for permission to
reprint.*