**REMARKS OF\
COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS\
FREEDOM TO CONNECT 2006**

**SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND**

**APRIL 3, 2006**

Good morning. Thanks for having me out here bright and early to help
kick off a new week and what I think will be one of the most important
dialogues taking place anywhere in the country today. And it's a special
pleasure to be with so many good citizens and innovators from the
Internet community. I don't know how you could have been more timely in
convening this conference because the issues you discuss today are
playing very prominently in both the legislative and regulatory spheres
these days. Today you can add immeasurably to our national conversation
about the future of the Internet and help us all to better understand
what a right to connect means in the broadband age. Many of you have
come from out of town and that's good because this is a dialogue that we
can't afford to confine inside the Beltway. We need to shine a light on
this issue everywhere in this country where there are broadband pipes
and Internet users. So I hope you'll take what you glean from this event
and return to your homes, businesses, blogs and communities and talk up
what you discuss here and help us chart the way to the promised land.

Let me start by reaffirming the pride we all take in the Internet. We
view the Internet as a place of freedom and openness. We view it as a
place where innovation can flourish, where it seems almost anyone with a
good idea, some technological savvy and a healthy dose of persistence
can develop a business with global reach. With the genius of a dumb pipe
connecting to intelligence at the edges and the common language of IP
communications, the possibilities are endless. And this is indeed the
way things ought to work.

But if we are not watchful, we will miss the signs that there are
threats to the openness that makes the Internet so great. Some telltale
clues are out there. News reports---from *Business Week* to *The Wall
Street Journal* to *The Financial Times* to *The New York Times*---have
sounded warning bells, suggesting a future where new broadband toll
bridges may restrict the use of services like VoIP, or make it difficult
to watch videos or listen to music over the web. It's not impossible to
imagine these things taking place. Because the more concentrated our
facilities providers grow, the more they have the ability, and possibly
even the incentive, to act as Internet gatekeepers---unduly influencing
the flow or speed of Internet traffic, ultimately perhaps even dictating
who can use the Internet and for what purposes.

We can't let this happen. If we do, there's no doubt in my mind we will
look back, shake our heads and wonder whatever happened to that open,
dynamic and liberating Internet that we once knew. "What promise it
held," we'll say. And if that occurs, history won't forgive us. Nor
should it.

So how did we come to this state of things? Two years ago, at the New
America Foundation, I posed a question: Is the Internet as we know it
dying? A provocative question, perhaps. But let's look at where we are.

In the dial-up days, Internet traffic was driven by end-users. They sat
at the edge of the network and with the click of a mouse or stroke of
the keyboard determined where to go and what to do on the Internet. As
we enter the broadband era, this end-user control is at risk. We are now
in a world where there are more concentrated broadband providers with
more control over the pipes that come into our homes and businesses. The
telephone companies and cable providers are competing to bring us
high-speed services. That's good. But FCC statistics show that together
these operators control nearly 98 percent of the broadband market, with
too many consumers lacking a choice between even two providers. Wireless
and Broadband Over Powerline are exciting, but the reality is we are
nowhere near seeing the kind of ubiquitous third, fourth or fifth player
necessary to turn broadband into a more vibrantly competitive market.

If we have a competitive marketplace, by all means the government can
step out of the picture and let a thousand flowers bloom. If the
marketplace is truly competitive, we can rely on its genius. But in the
meantime, the concentrated providers out there have the ability---and
maybe even the incentive---to build networks with traffic management
policies that could restrict how we use the Internet. Do you want to use
your broadband connection for VoIP service? Sorry, you may have to order
traditional voice service to do so. Do you want to stream videos over
your broadband connection? OK, but you could pay a premium price. Do you
want to use your connection for small business operations? Do you want
to use the most innovative applications that the largest web-based
companies are offering? Down the road this, too, new costs could await
you.

When you add these practices up, what you have is the specter of
broadband providers restricting where you go and what you do on the
Internet. "We're not going to do that," they say. But history shows when
firms have the technology and the incentive to do something to enhance
their sway, chances are they'll give it a try. It doesn't make them bad
people, but it ***can*** lead to horribly bad results.

So what is the FCC doing about it? Well, it's a mixed bag. In August,
the Commission decided to reclassify broadband transmission facilities
as Title I "information services" rather than Title II
"telecommunications services." To the uninitiated this sounds like just
semantics. But it has real consequences for consumers. The obligations
that attach to "telecommunications services"---and that were vital to
keeping the Internet open in the dial-up era---no longer apply to
wireline broadband services. And there are other shortcomings, too.
Reclassification brings new questions about the viability of universal
service policy, access by people with disabilities, consumer
protections---and even homeland security.

As an aside, isn't it curious how we are in this new Twenty-first
century with all its dazzling technologies and tools---and we're
spending all this time debating whether the protections folks fought so
hard to get for plain old telephone service in the last century should
even apply in the new one?

Be that as it may, when the Commission adopted the Reclassification
Order, I asked my colleagues also to adopt an Internet Policy Statement.
They did, and as a result, for the first time ever, the Commission has a
public document that summarizes the basic rights of Internet end-users.
The Internet Policy Statement states that consumers are entitled to: (1)
access content; (2) run applications and services; (3) connect devices
to the network; and (4) enjoy competition among network providers,
application and service providers, and content providers. The Policy
Statement sends a cautionary signal to network owners who may want to
set up tollbooths or restrict lanes by limiting what you can do with
your broadband connection. When the Policy Statement was adopted, there
were questions about its enforceability. Then, with the giant mergers of
SBC and AT&T, and Verizon and MCI, we saw the consolidation of last mile
facilities with dominant players that own over half of the Internet
backbone. Having the carriers commit to make these rights
enforceable---at least for the next two years---thus advanced the
efficacy of the Policy Statement, provided time for regulators and
legislators to consider making this policy permanent, and kept hope
alive that consumers would continue to sit in the driver's seat on the
Internet.

That was the first act of the net neutrality story. And it's the good
news. The not so good news is that we still have a ***long*** ways to go
to secure the future of the Net. Because Act Two is playing out right
now on the Congressional stage, with the FCC in a supporting role. Act
Two started with the public pronouncements from some of the big and
concentrated providers of broadband service. They are searching for new
business models and contending that web sites should pay for the traffic
they generate. What a strange new world that would be. I can't begrudge
providers for hunting for new revenue and new opportunities---that drive
helps keep our system going. But this particular proposal misses the
mark, because web site content is what makes the carrier's broadband
service valuable in the first place. It seems they want to double
dip---get paid by consumers so consumers can access web sites and get
paid by web sites so web sites can access consumers.

I believe as a matter of public policy, we should be doing everything we
can to preserve the openness that makes the Internet perhaps the
greatest (small "d") democratic platform ever devised. If providers with
bottleneck control can favor their own services and content and erect
tolls for unaffiliated service providers, we could end up with a truly
balkanized Internet. First-class will be reserved for web sites that pay
the extra tolls, and all others will be consigned to bumpy travel in
steerage. This inverts the democratic genius of the Internet: it makes
the pipe intelligent but the end-user dumb. It means that Internet
entrepreneurs of the future could have to seek permission to innovate
from the owner of the broadband pipe. It amounts to what Congressman
Markey aptly called a "broadband bottleneck tax."

It artificially constrains supply of bandwidth, at a time when the
better argument might be: "It's the bandwidth, stupid."

Meanwhile, we are slipping perilously down the international broadband
ranks. The last time I checked, we were 16^th^ in the world and
free-falling. Surely restricting what you can do with your broadband
connection is not going to help us climb back up the ranks. And if you
think my concerns about future problems with the Internet are over the
top, take a note from what happened last summer in Canada. A major
Internet provider blocked consumers' access to a web site set up by an
employee labor union---because the union was critical of the provider!
So imagine what could happen if your broadband Internet provider could
similarly restrict or retard your access to, say, certain news sources
or political sites.

I don't stand before you today claiming to have all of the answers---nor
even to suggest that I have raised all the questions that need to be
asked. But I am concerned. And I think we need a real national dialogue
on these issues regarding consumer rights, Internet openness and
broadband deployment. We need everyone---from big carriers, rural
providers, high-tech companies, Internet innovators, bloggers, the news
media---and most importantly, the American people involved. I think
we'll find that the American people are more than happy to engage in
such a discussion. This has all the hallmarks of being a grassroots, all
American issue. Let me be more specific. I attended a town meeting last
week in Norfolk, Virginia on the topic of media consolidation. When some
of the speakers likened what was happening in media with some of the
trends that could impact the Internet, the audience immediately
indicated its strong and palpable agreement. It dawned on me that this
issue of broadband access may just be the high voltage third rail of the
consolidation debate. It's an issue that is not going away---because the
future of the Internet is vitally important to all our fellow citizens.
Broadband is going to be one of truly major drivers of our economy in
this new century. So we need to get our national policies right. More
aptly, we need to get a national policy. Because if we get this wrong,
American consumers will pay and so will American technology, innovation
and entrepreneurship. That's a price we can't afford.

So let's roll up our sleeves and work together---all of us---to make
sure that the Internet continues to foster freedom and innovation, and
that the original vision that inspired this liberating technology lives
for another day and another generation. This is not just about better
communications or a better Internet, it's about a better America.

Thank you.