The FCC and the Unregulation of the Internet

Jason Oxman*

Counsel for Advanced Communications

Office of Plans and Policy

joxman@fcc.gov

Office of Plans and Policy

Federal Communications Commission

Washington DC 20554

July 1999

OPP Working Paper No. 31

*Several FCC colleagues deserve particular mention and thanks for their

assistance with this project. Thank you to Robert Pepper, Lisa Sockett, Kathryn Brown,

Stagg Newman, Dale Hatfield, Tom Power, Michael Kende, Doug Sicker and Robert

Cannon. A special thanks to William Kennard for his support and his leadership in this

era of convergence. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author, and do not

necessarily represent the views of the Federal Communications Commission, the

Chairman or any of its Commissioners, or other staff.
2

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

I. The Internet, Openness, and the Marketplace 4

II. Unregulated data and deregulated equipment 1960s-1970s: Computer

Inquiry and Carterfone 7

Computer Inquiry 8

Basic vs. Enhanced: What does it mean? 12

Competitive Customer Premises Equipment 13

III. The unregulated data market of the 1980s and 1990s: Universal Service and

the ESP Exemption 15

Effect of Universal Service 15

The ESP Exemption 16

IV. Recent Developments 18

Fostering Competitive Broadband Deployment 18

Beyond the phone network: The Internet over Wireless, Cable, and Mass Media 20

V. Looking to the future: Pressure for Government Intervention 22

Effects of Convergence 22

The Public-Private Internet 23

VI. Conclusion: Lessons from “Unregulation” 24
3

Executive Summary

• The Internet is becoming the most important communications medium in history with

the potential to transform personal, social, economic and political behavior.

The typical American family gains an incredible amount of value from its $20 per

month Internet account, including such services as investing, travel planning,

homework research, email communications, and shopping, among others.

• The Internet Economy generated over $300 billion in revenue in the U.S. last year

and is rapidly changing the way America does business. Nearly one third of the

nation’s households are regular Internet users.

• The success of the Internet has not been an accidental development. Market forces

have driven the Internet’s growth, and the FCC has had an important role to play in

creating a deregulatory environment in which the Internet could flourish. This paper

examines the history of the FCC’s data policies and the ways in which those policies

have benefited the Internet. Key FCC policy decisions have included:

• Fostering the development of an interconnected telecommunications network that

ensured near universal availability of a reliable and affordable telephone system

over which data services could be offered.

• Determining through the Computer Inquiry proceedings that computer

applications offered over that network were not subject to regulation, giving rise

to the unregulated growth of the Internet.

• Exempting enhanced service providers from the access charges paid by

interexchange carriers, helping drive the availability of inexpensive dial-up

Internet access.

• Deregulating the telecommunications equipment market while requiring carriers

to allow users to connect their own terminal equipment, helping to foster the

widespread deployment of the modem and other data equipment tools that can be

easily attached to the public switched network.

• Implementing flexible spectrum licensing policies that permit innovative uses of

wireless data services, leading to the development of wireless Internet

applications.

• As the Commission moves into the next century, it must continue to take the

necessary steps, as it has in the past, to ensure that communications networks and

Internet services that rely on those networks will continue their dynamic and vibrant

growth. Fundamental lessons learned from the Commission’s thirty year

deregulatory approach towards data networks include:

• Do not automatically impose legacy regulations on new technologies,

• When Internet-based services replace traditional legacy services, begin to

deregulate the old instead of regulate the new; and

• Maintain a watchful eye to ensure that anticompetitive behavior does not

develop, do not regulate based on the perception of potential future

bottlenecks, and be careful that any regulatory responses are the minimum

necessary and outweigh the costs of regulation.
4

I. The Internet, Openness, and the Marketplace

Much as the steam engine revolutionized industry in the 18th century, electricity

changed the way we lived in the 19th century, and the circuit-switched telephone system

shrank distance for voice communications in the first part of the 20th century, the Internet

has radically altered the way we live in the last decade of this century. The Internet has

created the information revolution, and it is on its way to becoming the single most

important communications tool in existence. The Internet exercises enormous influence

on the commercial, educational, and social future of this country. According to one

survey, nearly 80 million Americans are online today, with a total of 100 million

Americans expected online by the end of the year 2000.1 They are shopping, researching

investments, making travel plans, expanding their educational horizons, and interacting

with one another in an online community.

The growth of the Internet is nothing short of explosive, driven by the invention

in this decade of the World Wide Web, which gives consumers a user-friendly platform

from which to access content in the online world. In 1993, the year the first commercial

web browser hit the consumer market, there were 1.3 million computers linked to the

Internet. In four short years, that number reached over 16 million,2 and an estimated 80

million Americans are online today.3 Americans are using the Internet to communicate

with each other like never before, as email has become the communications medium of

choice for millions of users.4 And the Internet is an unprecedented educational tool as

well. Thirty-five percent of U.S. schools had access to the Internet in 1994. By 1998, 51

percent of the nation’s public school instructional rooms – not just schools, but individual

classrooms – had Internet access.5 School children are using the Internet to explore far

off places by interacting with peers around the globe and bringing educational materials

to their desktops from thousands of miles away. And their parents are using the Internet

for commerce. Commercial activity on the Internet in this country, estimated to be over

100 billion dollars by the end of this year, is expected to more than double next year.6 In

all, the “Internet economy” generated 300 billion dollars, and was responsible for 1.2

million jobs, in this country is 1998.7

 

1

 Intelliquest, cited at Nua Internet Surveys, http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/n_america.html.

2

 Hobbes Internet Timeline, located at http://www.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html.

3

 According to the Department of Commerce’s recently released Digital Divide report, 32.7% of Americans

are online today. See Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, Department of Commerce,

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, at 43 (rel. July 1999) (“Digital Divide”).

4

 80% of Americans who use the Internet use it to send email. See id. at 40.

5

 “Internet Access in Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-98,” National Center for Education Statistics,

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (rel. Feb. 1999). The

survey defined “instructional rooms” as “classrooms, computer or other labs, school libraries, and media

centers.”

6

 Forrester Research figures, cited at

http://www.nua.ie/surveys/analysis/graphs_charts/comparisons/ecommerce_us.html.

7

1999 Internet Economy Indicators, Cisco Systems, located at

http://www.internetindicators.com/features.html.
5

The Internet’s success can be attributed to several ingredients, but none are as

important as the market forces, investment, and competition that have driven its growth.

The Internet is a loose interconnection of tens of thousand of networks that communicate

using a common communications protocol. Every user that accesses the Internet

becomes part of it. The most important technical feature of the Internet is its openness,

which allows any user to develop new applications and to communicate with virtually

any other user. This openness is driven by the sharing of that common communications

protocol: IP, the Internet protocol, developed by early Internet pioneers. No one owns

the Internet protocol, no one licenses its use, and no one restricts access to it. IP is

available for all to use, and the explosion of Internet applications, from online commerce

and medicine to educational and social tools, demonstrates the wide range of individuals

and companies taking advantage of the openness of the Internet.

But the Internet is much more than just a common language. The Internet is a

community, and users need to move in and out of that community with ease. The Internet

has grown up over this country’s telephone lines, a technological development that has

made it possible for virtually any American to join the online community. Because of the

vast expanse of telephone penetration in this nation,8 and because of the openness of that

network, the Internet has exploded. Every American with a phone line and a computer

can be part of the Internet. The phone network has historically been open in two senses:

phone customers are permitted to access any Internet service provider of their choosing,

and those customers are permitted to attach their own equipment to the phone line,

allowing them to use modems to transform their phone lines into their own information

superhighways.

Open access across the telecommunications network has driven the deployment of

innovative and inexpensive Internet access services. The average cost of basic telephone

service to most residential consumers is between 13 and 29 dollars per month (an average

of 20 dollars per month across the country last year).9 Hundreds of Internet service

providers offer unlimited dial-up Internet access (no hourly fees) over that inexpensive

phone line for less than 20 dollars per month. Indeed, Internet service providers

themselves utilize this same phone network to offer an amazing array of Internet services

to customers, and the affordable use of the telephone network has allowed these providers

to offer inexpensive access to the Internet to virtually all Americans. Once on the

Internet, the interconnection of this nation’s communications networks allows Internet

users to communicate with virtually all other users, around the nation and the world. The

Internet’s “killer apps,” email and the World Wide Web, developed and flourished by

using our nation’s phone lines.

In sum, the growth and continued success of the Internet, and the ability of market

forces to sustain and encourage that growth, can be attributed to one basic attribute: the

openness of both the Internet and the underlying telecommunications infrastructure. The

 

8

 According to the Commerce Department, over 94% of U.S. homes owned telephones in 1998. See Digital

Divide at 2.

9

See Tracy Waldon, Federal Communications Commission, The Industry Analysis Divisions’ Reference

Book of Rates, Price Indices, and Expenditures for Telephone Service at 4-6 (rel. July 1998 ).
6

Internet Protocol ensures that all Internet users can speak a common language, and this

nation’s communications highways, operated under the supervision of the FCC, ensure

that the Internet has a platform over which it can access the world. To the extent that the

Internet has relied on the openness of this nation’s communications infrastructure to

reach all corners of this nation, this ingredient in its success has not been an accident.

The FCC has taken numerous steps since the early days of the telecommunications data

services industry three decades ago to permit competitive forces, not government

regulation, to drive the success of that industry. As discussed in greater detail below, the

success of the Internet today is, in part, a direct result of those policies.

The FCC’s goal for three decades has been to ensure that all users of data

services, like the Internet, have access to those services over our nation’s

communications infrastructure. The story of the Commission and its role in the

development of the Internet10 highlights the benefits of the FCC’s early deregulatory

efforts to facilitate the growth of computer applications offered over the public

telecommunications network. As discussed in greater detail below, the Commission

determined that computer-based services offered over telecommunications facilities

should not be subject to common carrier regulation, and in so ruling the Commission set

forth the necessary unregulated landscape for the growth and development of the Internet.

As the Internet has matured over the last three decades, the Commission has acted in

numerous ways to ensure that this incredible network of networks continued to develop

unregulated. Equally important, the Commission has also ensured universal access to the

ubiquitous telecommunications network on which the Internet relies to reach millions of

users across America.

This paper provides a brief examination of the FCC’s contributions to the rapid

expansion and success of the Internet. The Commission does not, and should not, take

credit for the success of the Internet beyond the role it has played in providing fertile

ground for the growth and development of data networks over the nation’s

communications infrastructure. This paper highlights the distinction drawn by the FCC

between the unregulated Internet and the regulated telecommunications network, a

crucial decision that helped foster the dramatic expansion of computer applications

offered over telephone lines. Finally, it briefly examines convergence issues that raise

new questions about the proper role of the FCC in the Internet age and the fundamental

lessons the FCC has learned in the last three decades, with the goal of sparking a dialogue

on how such issues should be addressed. Above all, present day questions about the

FCC’s role in the Internet are best informed by an examination of the Commission’s

thirty-year tradition of “unregulating” the data services market.

 

10 Of course, the most notable federal government contributions to the creation and development of the

Internet have been those of the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, whose myriad

contributions are beyond the scope of this paper.
7

II. Unregulated data and deregulated equipment 1960s-1970s: Computer

Inquiry and Carterfone

In September of 1969, a small team of computer pioneers from the

Massachusetts-based computer firm Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) installed a

prototype packet switch11 called an Interface Message Processor (IMP) at the University

of California – Los Angeles. By the end of 1969, three more IMPs were in place at U.C.

Santa Barbara, the Stanford Research Institute at Stanford University, and the University

of Utah. BBN’s team linked the IMPs, Honeywell 516 servers with a mere 12 kilobytes

of memory, together by telephone lines. The researchers then set about testing the ability

of the network to carry data between the computers. The Internet had an inauspicious

debut: the first packetized data, carried between IMPs at Stanford and UCLA, crashed

the system. As the sixties came to an end, computer processing and telecommunications

facilities, married in a brilliant network configuration with common protocols, gave birth

to the Internet.12

Three years before these historic events, the Federal Communications

Commission foresaw the marriage of computer and telecommunications technologies and

commenced a formal inquiry into the use of computer-based services over telephone

lines.13 By opening the inquiry, the Commission sought to explore the regulatory and

policy issues presented by the convergence of these technologies. Predicting that the

future would bring the convergence and interdependence of computers and

communications, the Commission recognized the difficulty of separating the two into

discrete categories. The Commission noted the importance of the burgeoning data

industry in the opening paragraph of the inquiry, foreshadowing the very attributes of the

Internet that would make it such a success.

The modern-day electronic computer is capable of being

programmed to furnish a wide variety of services, including

the processing of all kinds of data and the gathering,

storage, forwarding, and retrieval of information --

technical, statistical, medical, cultural, among numerous

other classes. With its huge capacity and versatility, the

computer is capable of providing its services to a

multiplicity of users at locations remote from the computer.

Effective use of the computer is, therefore, becoming

increasingly dependent upon communication common

 

11 Packet switches take information that is partitioned into small packets and route them to their

destinations. Packet switches will route their payloads over the best available pathway, so that packets of

data with the same destination may take different transmission paths to get there. Circuit switches, on the

other hand, establish a single dedicated transmission pathway for the transportation of information.

12 For a list of useful timelines and histories of the Internet, visit the Internet Society (ISOC) web page at

http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/.

13 In the Matter of Regulatory and Policy Problems Presented by the Interdependence of Computer and

Communication Services and Facilities, 7 FCC 2d 11 (1966) (First Computer Inquiry).
8

carrier facilities and services by which the computers and

the user are given instantaneous access to each other.14

The Commission sought information on technological advances in the computer industry,

asking commenting parties to discuss the innovative new services that would combine

common carrier facilities with computer processing capabilities. Most importantly, the

Commission asked if the policies and objectives of the Communications Act of 193415

would best be served by permitting computer services to evolve in a free competitive

market, rather than subjecting them to regulation under the Act. By the time BBN

developed the first email program in 1972, the Commission had already issued its initial

decision in the Computer Inquiry and had begun the process of “unregulating” the data

service industry.

Computer Inquiry

The FCC’s first Computer Inquiry, opened in 1966, generated a significant

response to the Commission’s request for comment on the interdependence of computers

and communications services and facilities. The Commission issued a tentative decision

in 1970, followed by a final decision in March of 1971.16 Before discussing its

conclusions in the final decision, the Commission made note of the significant effect the

mere opening of the Computer Inquiry had on the development of competition and the

reduction of prices in the common carrier marketplace.

For example, the Commission noted that AT&T in early 1970 had filed a

voluntary tariff revision that reduced the minimum rate period for use of the public

switched network from 3 minutes to 1 minute, in response to the computer industry’s

request for more flexible minimum usage periods that reflected the short, bursty nature of

packetized data traffic.17 In addition, AT&T reduced its message toll service rates,

permitting more economical transmission of data across the public switched telephone

network (PSTN). The Commission also made note of the steps it was taking to

encourage new entrants into the telecommunications marketplace to provide competitive

voice and data transmission services. For example, in 1969, the Commission permitted

Microwave Communications, Inc., (now MCI WorldCom) to enter the intercity private

line market, thus offering the public, as well as data service providers, a wider range of

telecommunications services than provided by then monopoly provider AT&T.18

On the access side of the network, business customers began to seek inexpensive

options for reaching the long distance carriers. The development of competitive

providers of access to the long distance network, a market that would grow into the

expansive competitive access provider (CAP) market of the 1980s, helped to keep private

 

14 First Computer Inquiry, 7 FCC 2d 11, ¶ 1 (1966)

15 The 1934 Act created the Federal Communications Commission for “the purpose of regulating interstate

and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio . . . .” 47 U.S.C. § 151.

16 See First Computer Inquiry, Tentative Decision, 28 FCC 2d 291 (1970); First Computer Inquiry, Final

Decision and Order, 28 FCC 2d 267 (1971).

17 See First Computer Inquiry, First Report and Further Notice of Inquiry, 17 FCC 2d 587, 590 (1969).

18 See Microwave Communications, Inc., 18 FCC 2d 953 (1969).
9

line prices down by providing an alternative to the incumbent LEC for access to the

telecommunications network. Inexpensive private lines meant companies offering data

services could purchase telecommunications transport for those services at reasonable

prices. For consumers, more choice in telecommunications services meant better access

to data services offered over phone lines.

The Commission recognized that its Computer Inquiry was particularly important

because the data processing industry “has become a major force in the American

economy,” and the industry “cannot survive, much less develop further, except through

reliance upon and use of communication facilities and services.”19 The Commission

proceeded to address the two issues it considered of fundamental importance to the

nascent data industry: (1) are computer data processing service providers subject to

common carrier regulation; and (2) should common carriers that provide data processing

services themselves be subject to regulations that prevent them from discriminating

against competing data service providers?

The Commission answered the first question in the negative. While concluding

that the Communications Act gave the FCC wide discretion to regulate any services

offered by wire or radio, the Commission began its inquiry by looking to the basic

purpose of the Act and the regulatory mandate it granted. The Act, the Commission

noted, directed the FCC to remove barriers to entry when such barriers unlawfully

restricted free enterprise, but did not require the FCC to assert and exercise jurisdiction

merely because an activity could be construed as falling within the parameters of the

Act.20 As the D.C. Circuit concluded in Philadelphia Broadcasting, the FCC is “entitled

to some leeway in choosing which jurisdictional base and which regulatory tools will be

most effective in advancing the Congressional objective” of the protection of the public

interest.21

After examining the record developed through its Inquiry, the Commission

concluded that the public interest would not be served by regulation of data processing

services. The Commission found “ample evidence” of the widespread availability of data

processing services, indicating “no natural or economic barriers to free entry into the

market for these services.”22 The market for data services would continue to flourish, the

Commission determined, in the existing competitive environment. As discussed in

further detail below, so long as the underlying telecommunications network, over which

data services would “travel,” remained healthy and robust, data services themselves

should be free from regulation. Thus, data processing services were “unregulated” from

the outset, permitting the data industry to develop innovative services exempt from the

numerous common carrier requirements of Title II of the Communications Act.

 

19 First Computer Inquiry, Final Decision and Order, 28 FCC 2d at ¶ 7. The Commission had previously

defined “data processing” as “the use of a computer for the processing of information as distinguished from

circuit or message-switching.” ‘Processing’ involves “the use of the computer for operations which

include, inter alia, the functions of storing, retrieving, sorting, merging and calculating data, according to

programmed instructions.” First Computer Inquiry, 28 FCC 2d at Subpart F.

20 First Computer Inquiry, Tentative Decision, 28 FCC 2d at ¶ 18.

21 Philadelphia Television Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 359 F.2d 282, 284 (D.C. Cir. 1966).

22 First Computer Inquiry, Tentative Decision, 28 FCC 2d at ¶ 20.
10

The issue of provision of data services by common carriers presented more

serious competitive concerns for the Commission. The Commission determined that the

participation of common carriers in the data processing market would benefit consumers

by offering them innovative new services at lower prices.23 The Commission was

concerned, however, that common carriers would compete unfairly against other

unaffiliated data service providers in two ways. First, the Commission noted that data

processing services required common carrier facilities and services as necessary inputs,

and that common carriers that offered their own data services would have the ability and

incentive to discriminate against unaffiliated data service providers by denying them

access to fairly priced telecommunications services. Second, the Commission noted that

common carriers might improperly cross-subsidize their unregulated data processing

services with rate-regulated common carrier revenues.

The Commission addressed these discrimination and cross-subsidization concerns

in the Computer Inquiry proceeding by requiring common carriers seeking to offer data

services to offer such services through a separate affiliate.24 Such a separation of

communications and data service activities constituted a reasonable means, the

Commission concluded, of permitting such carriers to offer data services. The

Commission required common carriers to serve their data processing affiliates and

competitors equally in all respects, so that the carrier’s affiliate could not receive

preferential provisioning intervals, service quality, or maintenance. Thus, common

carriers were permitted to enter and compete in the data market, but with safeguards in

place to ensure that competing data providers had nondiscriminatory access to the

underlying communications components of their service offerings.

The Commission continued its examination of these issues in the Computer II

proceedings, opened in the 1970s. In Computer II, the Commission focused on the need

to develop a workable categorical definition of both regulated telecommunications

services and unregulated data services. The result: the creation of the categories of

“basic” and “enhanced” services. The Commission defined the term “basic service,”

which referred to common carrier telecommunications offerings, like telephone service,

as a common carrier offering of a pure “transmission capacity for the movement of

information.”25 The Commission defined “enhanced services” as:

services, offered over common carrier transmission

facilities used in interstate communications, which employ

computer processing applications that act on the format,

content, code, protocol, or similar aspects of the

 

23 First Computer Inquiry, Final Decision, 28 FCC 2d at ¶ 11.

24 Id. at ¶ 12 et seq. The Commission later eliminated the separate affiliate requirements in Computer III,

determining that a series of non-accounting safeguards would serve the same non-discrimination policy

without requiring physical separation of services. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the

Computer III order to the Commission with instructions to further explain its decision to lift structural

separation. See California v. FCC, 4 F.3d 1505 (1993).

25 In the Matter of Amendment of Section 64.702 of the Commission's Rules and Regulations (Second

Computer Inquiry), 77 FCC 2d 384, 419 (1980) (Computer II Final Decision).
11

subscriber’s transmitted information; provide the subscriber

additional, different, or restructured information; or involve

subscriber interaction with stored information.26

Present day examples of enhanced services include voice messaging, protocol

processing, alarm monitoring and electronic publishing, as well as Internet access

services. Enhanced services are often thought of as “basic service plus;” in other words,

they combine a basic service, like telephone service, with an enhancement, like a

computer processing or storage service. For example, the telephone service used to

access an interactive voicemail system is a regulated basic service, while the voicemail

system, which combines the telephone service with computer storage facilities, is an

unregulated enhanced service. This distinction is discussed in greater detail in the next

section.27 In sum, though, Computer II saw the Commission reiterating its commitment

to regulating only the common carrier “basic” transmission service offerings while

continuing to exempt enhanced services from common carrier regulation. The

Commission in Computer II continued to require common carriers that offered enhanced

services to provide those services through a separate affiliate, based on the same concerns

about discrimination and cross-subsidization expressed in the First Computer Inquiry.

The next step in the Commission’s Computer Inquiry, the Computer III

proceeding, saw the replacement of the separate affiliate requirement for common

carriers offering data services with a model of nonstructural safeguards, such as

accounting safeguards, that permitted common carriers to offer enhanced services on an

integrated basis, i.e., within the regulated telephone company. Even as the Commission

eschewed the separate affiliate model for common carrier data service offerings in favor

of nonstructural safeguards, the fundamental principle of nonregulation of data services

remained intact.28 In addition, the Commission continued to require common carriers to

unbundle their basic service offerings from their enhanced service offerings. The

Commission also maintained the requirement on common carriers, first established in the

initial Computer Inquiry, to make basic services available to competing enhanced service

providers at tariffed rates. For the Commission, the main purpose of Computer III was to

establish a deregulatory means of ensuring that common carriers and non-common

carriers alike could compete fairly in the market for data services.

The practical effect of the Commission’s decision not to regulate data processing

services has been nothing short of explosive. Early Internet pioneers utilized data

processing services over telecommunications facilities to inter-network computers across

 

26 47 C.F.R. § 64.702(a).

27 In 1996, Congress effectively replaced the FCC’s basic and enhanced terminology with

“telecommunications” and “information” service categories. The Commission has noted that

“telecommunications services” and “basic services” appear to extend to the same services, as do

“information services” and “enhanced services.” For a more detailed discussion, see Federal-State Joint

Board on Universal Service, Report to Congress, 13 FCC Rcd 8776 at ¶¶ 33-48 (1998).

28 The Commission recently modified certain of the requirements placed on Bell Operating Companies

pursuant to Computer III in order to streamline the reporting and filing obligations placed on those

companies. In the Matter of Computer III Further Remand Proceedings: Bell Operating Company

Provision of Enhanced Services, 13 FCC Rcd 6040 (1998).
12

great distances. The use of a common protocol,29 TCP/IP,30 permitted the transmission

across telephone lines of data from end users on virtually any computer network. In the

1980s, the Internet was primarily an educational and research tool used for electronic

mail, file transfers, and newsgroups. In the 1990s, the Internet would explode with the

development of the World Wide Web and the first web browsers, software used to

navigate the web. The worldwide connection of disparate networks over the Internet,

most connected via telecommunications lines, and increasingly over wireless

technologies and cable networks, has made that explosive growth possible. And the

FCC’s early recognition that regulation of data services as common carrier offerings

would inhibit flexibility in the development and deployment of these already competitive

services was a crucial component of that growth.

Basic vs. Enhanced: What does it mean?

The difference between regulated communications services and unregulated data

services has often given rise to confusion as to exactly which aspect of communications

services the FCC regulates. This confusion is particularly evident in the present-day

discussion of Internet services, where rumors of imminent FCC regulation of the Internet

surface frequently. As the public debates the future deregulatory role of the Commission

in an age of convergence, it is particularly important to understand the conceptual basis

of the distinction between basic and enhanced services.

A useful way to think about the distinction between basic and enhanced services

is an analogy to the nation’s oil pipelines, storage facilities, and the refineries that rely on

pipelines to transport oil. Oil pipelines are bare transport mechanisms that carry oil from,

for example, ship to storage facility, often across great distances. The pipelines take oil

in at one end, and transport that oil to the destination of the customer’s choosing. The

pipeline is a “dumb” transmission mechanism that does not interact with its cargo.

In the case of a data service, like a dial-up Internet access service, for example,

there are two components involved. First, the consumer purchases local telephone

service, the equivalent of the empty pipeline, from the phone company. This purchase

entitles the customer to put its “oil,” i.e., voice or data, into the pipeline, and the

telephone company will transport it to the user’s chosen destination. Second, the

consumer purchases Internet access from an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP

takes data placed in the pipeline by the end user and performs computer processing on

that data. Using the oil analogy, imagine a pipeline that has a ship at one end (the end

user), a storage facility at the other end (the Internet), and a refinery in the middle. Oil is

transported via the pipeline from ship to refinery, where the pipeline offloads the oil; the

refinery transforms the oil into gasoline; and the pipeline then carries the processed oil to

the storage facility. The pipeline still performs no more of a function than the

transmission of its cargo: it is not responsible for the changes the cargo has undergone.

 

29 Protocols are rules that communications networks follow to determine the format and speed, for example,

of data transmissions.

30 TCP/IP, the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol allows disparate networks to communicate

with each other and share data with the use of a common language.
13

The ISP is the equivalent of the refinery. Thus, when the user dials in to the ISP

and establishes a modem connection, the telephone line is the transmission path. The end

user transmits data over the telephone line to the ISP, the ISP modifies that data, and the

telephone line carries that data to its destination. When the data reaches its destination,

the telephone line “unloads” it, and prepares to carry back to the end user whatever data

has been requested. In the case of Internet access, the end user utilizes two different and

distinct services. One is the transmission pathway, a telecommunications service that the

end user purchases from the telephone company. The second is the Internet access

service, which is an enhanced service provided by an ISP. The telephone service is the

basic service; the Internet access service, offered over the telephone service, is the “basic

service plus” protocol processing and other computer offerings, so it is an enhanced

service. The ISP provides the end user the capability of sending, retrieving, and storing

data, as well as transforming data to different protocols to allow the end user to interact

with other computer networks that speak other “languages.” These functions are separate

from the transmission pathway over which that data travels. The pathway is a regulated

telecommunications service; the enhanced service offered over it is not.

Competitive Customer Premises Equipment

At about the same time the Commission launched its first Computer Inquiry, it

released a short order addressing the complaint of Thomas F. Carter and his company, the

Carter Electronics Corporation, against AT&T.31 In 1959, Carter invented a device,

which he named for himself, that permitted users of mobile radio systems to interconnect

their landline telephone with the radio system to permit mobile and fixed users to

communicate with each other. AT&T advised its customers that the Carterfone, if used

in conjunction with an AT&T telephone, would subject the end user to penalties pursuant

to AT&T’s FCC tariff number 132, which provided that:

No equipment, apparatus, circuit or device not furnished by

the telephone company shall be attached to or connected

with the facilities furnished by the telephone company,

whether physically, by induction or otherwise . . . .

Carter filed a private antitrust suit against AT&T, and the District Court referred the

matter to the FCC.

The Commission concluded that AT&T’s tariff was unreasonable and

discriminatory and ordered the restrictive tariff provisions stricken. The Commission

was troubled by the tariff provision that would have permitted end users to install AT&Tmanufactured equipment with exactly the same functionality offered by the Carterfone,

but not the Carterfone itself. The Commission determined that a customer desiring to

improve the functionality of the telephone network by interconnecting a piece of

 

31 In the Matter of Use of the Carterfone Device in Message Toll Telephone Service, 13 FCC 2d 420

(1968).
14

equipment not manufactured by the phone company should be permitted to do so, so long

as that equipment does not harm the network.

The principle of consumer usage of non-telephone company manufactured

equipment with the public switched telephone network, outlined by the Commission in

Carterfone, would later be codified as Part 68 of the FCC’s rules. Part 68 was first

adopted in 1975 as part of the Commission’s WATS rulemaking,32 in response to

telephone company slowness in modifying tariffs to permit consumers to attach their own

equipment to the public network. Part 68, which addresses connection of terminal

equipment33 to the public telephone network, permits consumers to connect equipment

from any source to the public network if such equipment fits within the technical

parameters outlined in Part 68. Competitive manufacturers of equipment were able, by

means of the Commission’s equipment registration and certification procedures, to build

and deploy an incredible variety of voice and data equipment for use with the public

network, without seeking prior permission from either the Commission, or more

importantly, the monopoly telephone companies.

Through Carterfone and Part 68, the Commission opened the door to

manufacturers of devices that interconnected with the telephone network and offered

value-added services and capabilities. Most important for the growth and development of

the Internet, the Commission’s deregulation of customer premises equipment, or CPE,

cleared the way for the rapid deployment of the modem. The modem allows any

consumer with a computer and a telephone line to access data services, requiring no

network alterations by the telephone company. Residential modem use, in turn, has

driven the growth of Internet applications as consumer use of the Internet has increased.

In fact, without Part 68, users of the public switched network would not have been able to

connect their computers and modems to the network, and it is likely that the Internet

would have been unable to develop.

As the application of Moore’s law34 to computer processing speeds witnessed an

exponential growth in computing capabilities, the modem followed suit. Analog modem

speeds rose from 300 baud to 28.8 kilobits/second, and then to today’s nearly standard 56

kilobits/second.35 Digital modems and codecs,36 using such technologies as digital

subscriber line (DSL),37 promise multiple increases in speed that will create demand for

even more innovative Internet-based resources and tools. As a result, consumers will

 

32 Proposals for New or Revised Classes of Interstate and Foreign Message Tolls Telephone Service (MTS)

and Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS), 56 FCC 2d 593 (1975).

33 Terminal equipment refers to telephones and other equipment (modems and answering machines, e.g.)

attached to the customer end of the telephone line.

34 Moore’s law holds that the processing speed of computers doubles approximately every 18 months. It is

named for Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel.

35 It is important to note that very few 56 kbps modem users actually attain such a high speed in actual

usage.

36 Codec = coder/decoder. Modem = modulator/demodulator.

37 DSL technology takes advantage of those frequencies on a copper telephone line that are not used for the

provision of voice services and, using advanced modulation techniques, transports broadband data services

over those frequencies to the home.
15

continue to be exposed to an endless variety of Internet-based applications that meet their

increased bandwidth capabilities.

The Carterfone decision enabled consumers to purchase modems from countless

sources, to install and use the modem without permission from the telephone company,

and to use these modems to take advantage of an array of data services offered by a

diverse assortment of service providers over their home telephone service. Without easy

and inexpensive consumer access to modems, the Internet would not have become the

global medium that it is today.

III. The unregulated data market of the 1980s and 1990s: Universal Service and

the ESP Exemption

Effect of Universal Service

Since its creation, the FCC has operated under a congressional mandate of

ensuring that common carriers offer service to all that desire it at reasonable rates and

terms.38 Since the enactment of the Communications Act of 1934, the Congress, the

states, and the FCC have established a system of universal service that ensures the

availability of affordable basic telephone service to all Americans. Universal service

policies not only have obvious economic and social benefits for society, they also have

had an incalculable impact on the Internet. Although the Commission has never

regulated the Internet itself, it has helped to ensure its growth by fostering, through

universal service, the availability of the public telephone network, the network via which

the Internet reaches into millions of American homes and businesses.

The universal service system is designed primarily to ensure that low-income and

rural consumers have access to local phone service at reasonable prices. 39 Before the

passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act), universal service at the state

and federal levels was a mixture of implicit and explicit subsidies.40 Local telephone

companies were permitted to price services offered to interexchange carriers, as well as

certain intrastate services, above cost, with this implicit subsidy applied to rural and high

cost phone service to provide residents in those areas with affordable local service. In the

1996 Act, Congress directed the FCC to include schools, libraries, and rural health care

providers as beneficiaries of the universal service system. 41 In general, universal service

funding ensures that rural telephone customers do not pay the actual cost of phone

service, which could be hundreds of dollars more than the subsidized rate that the

Universal Service fund makes possible. In large measure, this funding mechanism is

responsible for the very high levels of telephone subscriber rates in America.

 

38 47 U.S.C. § 201.

39 47 U.S.C. § 254(d), (e).

40 Examples include the high cost fund, Lifeline, and Link-Up. The interstate access charge system also

provided implicit universal service funding support.

41 See 47 U.S.C. § 254. Enhanced service providers are not required to contribute to the universal service

funding mechanism because they are not considered to be “telecommunications carriers.” Federal-State

Joint Board on Universal Service, 12 FCC Rcd 8776, ¶¶ 788-90 (1997).
16

Combined with other common carrier regulations, such as the mandatory

interconnection of all telecommunications carriers,42 universal service helps create low

cost accessibility to the telephone network. The availability of reliable and universally

accessible telephone service is, in turn, the gateway to the Internet. With schools,

libraries, and rural health care providers able to afford the telecommunications facilities

they need to access the Internet, the Internet becomes even more accessible to all

Americans.

The ESP Exemption

For the Internet, the development of a broadly accessible, high quality phone

network meant virtually universal access for end users. As use of the Internet grew, data

service providers became Internet Service Providers, offering dial-up access to the

Internet for consumers with a phone line, a computer, and a modem. But long before the

explosion of ISPs, even before the invention of the World Wide Web, the FCC took

action that would eventually help pave the way for the nationwide growth of ISPs. In the

early 1980s, the FCC determined that enhanced service providers (ESPs) would be

exempt from access charges. Had the Commission decided differently, the tens of

millions of Americans today who enjoy unlimited use of the Internet for around $20 a

month, and who invest, shop, learn, and otherwise benefit from home Internet access,

might never have experienced this extraordinary tool.

In order to offer service to consumers, enhanced service providers purchase local

exchange services at business line rates from local exchange carriers. For example,

Internet service providers generally charge customers a flat monthly fee for access to the

ISP via a local telephone call. The ISP purchases business telephone lines from a local

exchange carrier, and the ISP’s customers dial into a modem bank, generally located at

the ISP’s premises, over these telephone lines. At the same time, interexchange carriers

(IXCs), the nation’s long distance telephone companies, also use local telephone

company facilities. In order to originate and terminate long distance calls, IXCs purchase

“access services” from local exchange carriers. Access services include usage-sensitive

access charges, which are per-minute charges that IXCs pay to both the originating and

terminating local telephone companies for each minute a long distance call is in

progress.43

In 1983, the Commission addressed the applicability of access charges to

enhanced service providers.44 The FCC answered the question of whether ESPs had to

purchase access services from local telephone companies. Were they found to be subject

to access charges, ESPs would be responsible for per-minute charges for any services

they offered to customers over common carrier facilities, forcing the ESPs to pass along

those usage charges to their customers. The Commission concluded that because ESPs

 

42 Pursuant to section 251(a) of the 1996 Act, all telecommunications carriers must “interconnect directly or

indirectly with the facilities and equipment of other telecommunications carriers.” Section 251(c)(2)

imposes additional interconnection obligations on incumbent LECs.

43 See generally 47 C.F.R. § 69.1 et seq.

44 MTS and WATS Market Structure, 97 FCC 2d 682, 711-22 (1983).
17

were not subject to common carrier regulation, and they did not use the local exchange

network in a manner analogous to IXCs, they should be treated as end users rather than

carriers in their usage of the network. The Commission noted that ESPs purchase

telephone exchange services, typically voice grade business lines, at business rates and

pay interstate subscriber line charges as end users, and it concluded that ESPs should not

have to pay access charges as well. On the one hand, the imposition of flat rate end user

charges meant that ESPs would pay their fair share for their use of the

telecommunications network, because the common carriers providing transmission

generally pass universal service costs on to consumers through such charges. On the

other hand, the absence of per-minute measured usage charges assessed on ESPs had

enormous implications for the Internet.

Over 6,000 Internet service providers (ISPs) today offer dial-up service to the

Internet, and over 95% of Americans have access to at least four local ISPs.45 Although

America Online, with over 18 million worldwide members, dominates the ISP field,

millions of Americans rely on small “one POP”46 or medium-sized ISPs for their service,

ISPs that may serve several hundred or fewer customers. Accessing an ISP through a

non-metered telephone call allows consumers to attain affordable access to the Internet.

ISPs can purchase the business lines they need to offer service from any local telephone

company.47 That so many thousands of ISPs offer service in this country at relatively low

rates is evidence of the positive impact of the ESP exemption on that field.

Contrasting the American ISP market with that in Europe provides additional

insight into the effect of the FCC’s ESP exemption and the promotion of competition in

the telecommunications marketplace. In the United Kingdom, for example, ISPs may

offer a flat rate for monthly service, but end users are subject to per-minute charges for

local dial-up connections to that ISP, resulting in a relatively expensive Internet

experience for most consumers. Just as importantly, users are conscious of the fac that

the meter is “ticking” as they browse the web. In the U.S., end users whose ISPs are

located within their local calling area generally pay a flat monthly fee to that ISP and are

not charged per-minute rates for the local call to the ISP. Adding to the expense of

Internet service in the UK, leased lines can cost upwards of $64,000 a year for a mere 1

megabit/second of bandwidth because of the absence of vibrant competition, tens of

thousands of dollars more than in the U.S.48 The combination of the high price of

 

45 Downes, Thomas and Shane Greenstein, “Do Commercial ISPs Provide Universal Access,” (Dec. 1998),

available at http://skew2.kellogg.nwu.edu/~greenste/research/papers/tprcbook.pdf.

46 POP stands for Point of Presence and refers to the number of local nodes for dial-up access that the ISP

has deployed.

47 Although business telephone lines may feature metered usage rates (for intraLATA toll calls, for

example), such per-minute charges are only assessed on outgoing, not incoming calls, and thus dial-up

ISPs, which receive calls from customers dialing in to modem banks, would not be subject to such charges.

Although ISPs connect to the PSTN by purchasing a local connection, in order to avoid forcing ISPs to pay

above-cost per minute charges, the Commission has found that the service provided to ISPs by telephone

companies is an interstate service. See Implementation of the Local Competition Provisions in the

Telecommunications Act of 1996, Inter-Carrier Compensation for ISP-Bound Traffic, FCC No. 99-38 (rel.

Feb. 26, 1999).

48 Baguely, Richard, “An Insider’s Look at the UK Internet Industry,” Boardwatch Magazine, May 1999 at

94.
18

telecommunications services provided to ISPs and the measured usage charges imposed

on end users has meant significantly lower Internet usage rates in the UK, and in

similarly situated European countries, than in the U.S. In this country, for example, the

ISP market generated over 15 billion dollars in income in 1998, compared with only 4

billion for the entire European ISP market.49 This is one reason why UK policy makers

are considering changing the way British consumers are charged for Internet access.

One final note: the ESP exemption is not, despite persistent rumors to the

contrary, at risk. One of the most prevalent rumors about the FCC is the myth,

occasionally circulated on the Internet, that the FCC is set to impose long distance

charges on the Internet. This rumor circulated heavily recently when, in early 1999, the

Commission issued its decision addressing reciprocal compensation payments for dial-up

Internet calls.50 As the Commission made clear, that decision addressed the limited issue

of compensation exchanged between local telephone companies for terminating local

calls and did not revoke, or even address, the ESP exemption. Rumors of imminent

application of per-minute charges on dial-up Internet accounts are untrue.

IV. Recent Developments

Fostering Competitive Broadband Deployment

Building on three decades of policy, the Commission has made numerous

decisions in recent years that continue to have a positive impact, direct or indirect, on the

growth and development of the Internet. The list of recent actions is long, but a brief

examination of some of the more notable decisions indicates the efforts of the FCC to

ensure that consumers continue to have access to a wide variety of innovative high-speed

data services from a multitude of service providers.

• In April 1998, in response to congressional direction, the FCC released a

report on the Commission’s progress in implementing the universal service

provisions of the 1996 Act.51 In the report, the Commission reaffirmed its

long-standing determination that basic services (referred to as

“telecommunications services” in the 1996 Act) and enhanced services

(referred to as “information services” in the 1996 Act) were separate and

distinct categories of service. Telecommunications services are regulated

common carrier services, and information services are not. As such, the

Commission concluded, information service providers are not required to

make direct contributions to the universal service fund, as telecommunications

carriers are required to do. This action preserved the unregulated status of

Internet Service Providers.

 

49 1999 Internet Economy Indicators, Cisco Systems, located at

http://www.internetindicators.com/features.html.

50 Implementation of the Local Competition Provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, InterCarrier Compensation for ISP-Bound Traffic, FCC No. 99-38 (rel. Feb. 26, 1999).

51 In the Matter of Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, Report to Congress, 13 FCC Rcd 8776

(1998).
19

• In October 1998, the Commission issued an order and proposed rulemaking

addressing the deployment of advanced services by telecommunications

carriers.52 Advanced services offer consumers high speed, high capacity

communications pipelines that can carry data more quickly and more

efficiently than traditional narrowband dial-up and circuit-switched networks.

The Commission clarified that advanced services are telecommunications

services, because they provide a basic transmission path from the end user to a

service provider. As such, advanced services are subject to Title II regulation.

By clarifying that advanced telecommunications services are common carrier

services subject to the interconnection and unbundling obligations of Title II,

the Commission helped encourage increased facilities-based and resale

deployment of advanced services over incumbent carriers’ networks,

providing high-speed service offerings that ISPs can combine with Internet

access to provide broadband Internet connectivity to consumers.

• In April 1999, the Commission issued an order and proposed rulemaking

addressing collocation and line sharing issues.53 Specifically, the Commission

adopted several measures to ensure that competitive providers of advanced

services have access to the space in incumbent telephone company offices

they need in order to offer innovative telecommunications services to

consumers. In addition, the Commission explored line sharing and loop

management issues that would help ensure that advanced services are

available from the widest possible variety of providers. These decisions that

prevent incumbent dominant local carriers from creating barriers to entry are

helping to speed the deployment of competitive broadband

telecommunications services, offering consumers more choice and better

service.

• In late 1998, the Commission addressed tariffs filed by certain incumbent

telephone companies for their digital subscriber line (DSL) services, a type of

advanced service.54 DSL is a high speed telecommunications service that

offers consumers the ability to access data services at speeds of up to 50 times

the traditional 56 kbps dial-up modem. The Commission concluded that DSL

services were properly classified as interstate telecommunications services

and should be tariffed at the federal level. This level of regulatory certainty is

assisting carriers in speeding their deployments of high speed

telecommunications services by providing a consistent forum for regulatory

issues related to service deployment. These broadband telecommunications

services are now being used by ISPs to provide high speed Internet access to

consumers.

 

52 Deployment of Wireline Services Offering Advanced Telecommunications Capability, 13 FCC Rcd 24012

(1998).

53 Deployment of Wireline Services Offering Advanced Telecommunications Capability, FCC 99-48 (rel.

Mar. 31, 1999).

54 See, e.g., GTE Telephone Operating Companies Tariff No. 1, 13 FCC Rcd 22466 (1998).
20

• The Commission has acted on several requests for waivers of its Part 68 CPE

rules to permit the testing and deployment of innovative new data equipment.

For example, the Commission recently permitted Nortel to demonstrate how

its “One Meg” modem would provide beneficial services to consumers

without harming the public telephone network. By permitting flexible

deployment of innovative data equipment, the Commission encourages

manufacturers to create and market new equipment for consumers to use in

accessing the Internet at high speeds.

These recent decisions evince a continuing effort on the part of the FCC to encourage

service providers, equipment manufacturers, and end users to develop and deploy

innovative new data services.

Beyond the phone network: The Internet over Wireless, Cable, and Mass Media

Wireless

As we look to the future of technology and the Internet, applications are spreading

across communications media, from the telephone network and beyond. For example,

wireless Internet solutions have taken hold in the last several years. Since the early

1990s, the FCC has recognized the need for flexibile use of the wireless spectrum and has

licensed commercial mobile radio service (CMRS), including personal communications

service (PCS) providers, without restricting their ability to use the spectrum for data

services. The Commission also grants wireless multichannel-multipoint distribution

system (MMDS) and local multipoint distribution system (LMDS) operators flexible use

of their spectrum for data services. Thus, the FCC opened the door for wireless

providers to develop innovative data services for consumer use. Indeed, products like

Ricochet, Metricom’s wireless modem service that currently offer 28.8 kbps access to the

Internet, are a direct result of that flexibility. MCI WorldCom’s recent decision to make

a substantial investment in Metricom promises an increased focus on wireless

technologies that provide an alternative to wireline broadband services.55 MCI

WorldCom and Sprint, among others, are also purchasing wireless cable providers in an

effort to expand their wireless local loop capabilities.56

Numerous satellite providers are planning to enter the broadband residential

market in the next several years. Loral’s Cyberstar, Hughes’ Spaceway, Lockheed

Martin’s Astrolink, SkyBridge, and Teledesic are just a few of the satellite-based

technologies that promise broadband services to customers that may otherwise not

receive land-based services.57 Broadband provider Tachyon.net is currently testing a

two-way satellite based service that would provide high-speed Internet access across a

footprint encompassing all of the U.S. and Europe by the end of 1999. Such services

 

55 See “MCI WorldCom Invests in Metricom,” CNET News.com (June 21, 1999), available at

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,0-38104,00.html

56 Indeed, the Commission continues to adopt more flexible spectrum usage policies for broadband service

providers. See “FCC Revisits Licensing and Service Rules for 39 Ghz Band,” News Release (rel. July 14,

1999), available at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Wireless/News_Releases/1999/nrwl9029.html.

57 Report on Advanced Telecommunications Capability, FCC 99-5, Report No. CC 99-1 at ¶ 60.
21

would be of particular benefit to rural consumers and those in the developing world, who

may be too far from a telephone company central office to access xDSL, or may not be

served by cable modem services.

Cable

Cable modem deployment is beginning to bring high speed access to the Internet

over a broadband pipe that traditionally has been used only for video program delivery.

Like xDSL services, cable modems utilize an existing pipe into the home (in this case,

coaxial cable) in combination with electronics at the customer’s premises and the cable

company’s offices to offer high bandwidth capacity to residential users.

As companies like @Home and Roadrunner deploy service across the country, the

Commission has determined in two separate proceedings in early 1999 that it would not

impose any regulation on cable Internet services at this time.58 The competitive, marketdriven strategy that the Commission has embraced in the cable arena is the same marketdriven approach that has guided the Commission’s policy in the Internet sphere for three

decades: the market, not the government, should bring broadband to all Americans. This

FCC policy has important implications for the ongoing deployment of cable modems. A

deregulatory approach to cable modem deployment is aimed at permitting this nascent

market to flourish without governmental interference.59 Rather than risk hindering cable

Internet service deployment in its early stages by imposing a potentially inappropriate

regulatory model, the Commission has determined that the marketplace should address

early deployment issues while the FCC monitors the ongoing deployment closely. At

mid-1999 it appears that this policy is working, with nearly one million cable modems

deployed, up from only 500,000 at the beginning of the year.

Digital Television

With the rollout of digital television (DTV) well underway, broadcasters are

exploring numerous different applications to offer consumers, including data services. In

assigning DTV frequencies to broadcasters, the Commission hoped that innovative data

services might become part of the DTV offerings. As such, the Commission did not

impose strict limitations on DTV spectrum usage, leaving the door open for broadcasters

to offer Internet-based applications. Although the potential data uses of DTV have yet to

be fully explored, the FCC’s flexible DTV rules allow for further development and

eventual deployment of innovative data services.

 

58 Applications for Consent to the Transfer of Control of Licenses and Section 214 Authorizations from

Tele-Communications, Inc., Transferor to AT&T Corp., Transferee, FCC No. 99-24 (rel. Feb. 18, 1999);

Report on Advanced Telecommunications Capability, 14 FCC Rcd 3160 (1999). In the AT&T/TCI

proceeding, the Commission determined that the equal access issues raised by parties did not provide a

basis for conditioning, denying, or designating for hearing any of the requested license transfers or

authorizations.

59 See Remarks of William E. Kennard, Chairman, FCC, before the National Cable Television Association,

Chicago, Illinois, June 15, 1999, available at http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/spwek921.html.
22

V. Looking to the future: Resisting Government Intervention

Although the FCC has a long tradition of encouraging the growth and

development of the Internet by nonregulation, deregulation, and certain affirmative

market-opening policies, there are frequent calls from many sources for the FCC to

become more heavily involved in Internet regulation. Moreover, the distinction between

the traditionally regulated and unregulated sectors of the information industry is blurring,

providing new challenges to the FCC’s telecommunications/information services

structure. The challenge to the FCC, other government agencies, and the affected

industries they touch, is to enter the era of convergence in a way that furthers the

Commission’s longstanding goal of promoting competition, not regulation, in the

marketplace.

Effects of Convergence

Incumbent LECs have been suggesting for years that the Commission’s

longstanding ESP exemption should be eliminated. These parties argue that enhanced

service providers use the telephone network exactly as long distance companies do,

originating and terminating interstate traffic while using the access network of the local

telephone company. In particular, U S WEST filed a petition with the Commission in

April 1999 asking for the Commission to declare that providers of Internet voice

telephony services are not enhanced service providers, despite their use of the Internet

Protocol, and should be subject to the access charge regime.60 U S WEST and others

argue that the provision of a phone to phone service, even one that uses the Internet,

should be treated as a telecommunications service. ISPs counter that they should not be

subject to access charges, and that they already contribute to universal service through

subscriber line charges and business line charges. The distinction between

telecommunications and information services is, U S WEST argues, most difficult to

maintain when voice applications are at issue.

The issue of Internet telephony suggests a greater pressure on the FCC in the age

of the Internet: the rapidly expanding convergence of media. No longer are cable

companies strictly video programmers. They offer video, data, and even voice service

over traditional cable television facilities. Wireless service providers offer voice and data

capabilities. Indeed, even within a particular technology, the traditional distinction

between information and telecommunications services is blurring. Internet telephony is

one example. As more services are offered that use the Internet Protocol in a packetswitched environment, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine where the

telecommunications service ends and the information service begins. Despite this

difficulty, however, it remains important for the FCC to maintain the unregulated status

of data services offered over telecommunications facilities. One area where this

distinction between telecommunications and information services is particularly

important is the Internet backbone.

 

60 See Petition of U S WEST Inc. for Declaratory Ruling Affirming Carrier’s Carrier Charges on IP

Telephony, filed April 5, 1999.
23

The Internet backbone carries Internet traffic between Internet service providers

over transmission facilities that traverse the nation and the globe. Backbone providers,

including MCI WorldCom, Sprint, and PSINet, exchange traffic with one another at

public network access points, or NAPs, and also at private points of interconnection. As

the Commission stated in the Universal Service Report to Congress, Internet service

providers that lease telecommunications capacity from common carriers, in order to

operate an Internet backbone, are not themselves common carriers, but are providers of

information services.61 Thus, for example, backbone providers negotiate arrangements

for the transport and exchange of Internet traffic, called either “peering” or transit

arrangements depending on their terms, which are private contractual agreements.62 In

contrast, telecommunications carriers interconnect with one other for the exchange of

telecommunications traffic pursuant to Title II, which obligates all carriers to

interconnect pursuant to reasonable terms and conditions.63 The Internet backbone

“travels” over telecommunications facilities, traditionally fiber optic cables. The Internet

backbone is regulated differently than circuit-switched voice traffic because they are two

different types of services. Much as Internet access services ride on top of local

exchange services, the Internet backbone rides on top of ATM, frame relay, or similar

high-speed telecommunications services. The underlying telecommunications services,

when provided by common carriers, are regulated; the information services that travel

over those telecommunications services are not. Because the Commission has made the

important policy determination that such data services should not be regulated, the

Internet backbone is treated as an unregulated information service.

Another example of the complexities convergence will bring is in the area of

universal service. Questions may arise on the issue of universal service fund

contributions when the converging service offerings muddy the distinction between those

revenues that give rise to contribution obligations and those that are exempt. For

example, a service provider may offer a bundle of voice, video, and data services, some

offered via the Internet Protocol and some offered over more traditional communications

architectures. This situation may test current rules about which revenue is included in

computing contributions to support universal service.

The Public-Private Internet

Both government and the private sector have played important roles in the growth

of the Internet. The Internet began as a government-funded research project. The

Department of Defense, seeking a means of fostering secure and protected

communications between institutions conducting defense research, funded the early

computer projects that gave birth to the Internet. The Defense Department, and later the

National Science Foundation (NSF), continued to fund the construction of this research

network for two decades, until 1995 when the NSF privatized the Internet backbone,

 

61 Universal Service Report to Congress at ¶ 67.

62 Peering arrangements involve the exchange of traffic between backbone providers without either

provider paying the other. Transit arrangements involve a payment from one backbone provider to the

other for the transit of packets.

63 See 47 U.S.C. § 251.
24

leading to an explosion of commercial Internet applications. The government has

nurtured this important technology, stepping back in recent years to permit the energy

and inventiveness of the Internet community to take over. Research institutions and

private industry, meanwhile, continue their partnership to improve the Internet with the

Internet II project, a high speed backbone linking educational and research facilities.

VI. Conclusion: Lessons from “Unregulation”

From the FCC’s initial determination that data processing should not be subject to

regulation, through the development of a universally accessible and affordable telephone

network, and to the flexibility granted to data service providers over new technologies,

the FCC has played an important role in the Internet’s expansion. The seeds of the

powerful economic and social force that is the Internet have been carefully germinated

over the last three decades, and the FCC has taken positive steps to cultivate the Internet

and ensure it has an open and free growth.

The principal challenge for the future comes from the convergence of

technologies, and the growing use of the Internet protocol for the delivery of numerous

services traditionally offered over legacy technologies. Where the distinction blurs

between the regulated and the unregulated, between traditional categories of service and

new methods of delivering traditional services, the Commission’s challenge is to

maintain its deregulatory stance towards data services and the Internet. The Commission

should be guided by the last thirty years of unregulation of data services and the lessons it

has learned in formulating that important policy. The Commission has had a role to play

in regulating the underlying communications services over which the unregulated Internet

travels. But as the foregoing discussion of the Commission’s treatment of data services

indicates, the FCC has met the introduction of new communications technologies with

the right attitude: let the marketplace, not the government, pick the winners and losers

among new services. The fundamental lessons learned from the Commission’s three

decades of hand-off, deregulatory action towards data networks include:

• Don’t automatically impose legacy regulations on new technologies. Perhaps the

most important contribution to the success of the Internet that the FCC has made has

been its consistent treatment of IP-based services as unregulated information services.

When innovative new IP communications services first entered the marketplace, the

Commission had already firmly established its deregulatory approach. The FCC did

not seek to apply legacy Title II regulations to the Internet as it developed and

flourished – the first email programs in the 1970s, interactive newsgroups in the

1980s, and the World Wide Web in the 1990s all grew up over the nation’s telephone

lines free from regulation. The next generation of Internet technologies should be

treated in a similar manner. The Commission has followed this important principal in

several readily apparent ways. For example, the FCC has not moved to impose

broadcast regulations on Internet-provided streaming audio and video services.

Traditional regulatory structures were designed to fit services in existence at the time

of enactment. New technologies, while perhaps similar in appearance or in

functionality, should not be stuffed into what may be ill-fitting regulatory categories
25

in the name of regulation. Rather, the Commission should continue the approach of

studying new technologies and only stepping in where the purpose for which the

Commission was created, protecting the public interest, demands it. The best

example of this approach was the Commission’s determination, in the Computer

Inquiry proceeding, that the public interest did not require regulation of data services.

• When Internet-based services replace traditional legacy services, begin to deregulate

the old instead of regulate the new. The Commission should not, and has not,

respond to the advent of innovative category-challenging services by squeezing them

into existing regulatory categories. Rather, the FCC should permit market forces to

work without interference from inappropriate regulation. For example, the

Commission has embraced the provision of wireless data services over a variety of

technologies and spectrum categories. Rather than regulate such services, the FCC

has, as noted above, provided a great deal of flexibility to licensees seeking to offer

such services. The unregulation of wireless data services should be a model for the

wireline world as well. As bypasses to the monopoly local network, like satellite,

wireless, and cable, are increasingly available, and IP technologies over a variety of

media make the single pipe into the home seem like the distant past, there will

undoubtedly be calls for the Commission to step in and level the playing field. Any

leveling that may be appropriate in the future should focus on having the Commission

examine its existing rules that affect legacy providers and eliminate those that may be

unnecessary in view of increased competition.

• Maintain a watchful eye to ensure that anticompetitive behavior does not develop,

and be careful that any regulatory responses are the minimum necessary and outweigh

the costs of regulation. As bypass networks and new technologies change the

communications landscape, the Commission must be ever vigilant to prevent the

creation or furtherance of bottlenecks that block free and fair access to essential

facilities. As the steward of the communications public interest, the Commission

must ensure that all players in the communications marketplace, including owners

and users of telephone networks and cable systems, have a fair opportunity to

compete. That goal should, and very often can, be accomplished without

governmental regulation, by permitting market forces to work and shape the

competitive landscape. The Commission should, of course, avoid regulation based

solely on speculation of a potential future problem. But oversight by the FCC is

crucial to ensure that market forces do not fail or are otherwise unfairly manipulated

by inappropriate behavior by entities with market power. If a bottleneck should

develop, the FCC’s first step should be to question whether the costs of governmental

intervention against that bottleneck would outweigh the benefits. The same question

should guide any Commission examination of a potential tying arrangement – not

every tying is unlawful, and the Commission should begin its inquiry with the

potential harm to the public that may result from such an arrangement. In essence,

the Commission’s approach should be minimalist, only taking those steps that are

directly necessary to solve the problem. Traditional methods of regulatory

intervention may be available, but may not be necessary. Rather than imposing

obligations on an entire industry, for example, the Commission could seek solutions
26

that address the specific problems posed by a particular bottleneck. For this reason,

the Commission must continue to monitor the provision of access to Internet services

to determine whether the market is working sufficiently to protect against

anticompetitive behavior.

In 1966, the FCC opened the Computer Inquiry to examine the interrelationship

of computers and communications, noting that “the growing convergence of computers

and communications has given rise to a number of regulatory and policy questions within

the purview of the Communications Act.”64 This statement is just as true today as it was

three decades ago. The convergence of today is still computer and communications, but

increasingly the interrelationship of content and transport is challenging traditional

regulatory categorizations. Where once data communications were offered “over” the

voice network, the network of the future promises voice services as just another data

offering. The FCC’s challenge is to maintain its hands-off approach to the Internet in an

era when traditionally regulated services, such as voice telephony, are offered over

traditionally unregulated mechanisms, like the Internet Protocol. The Commission’s

instinct, as it has always been, should be to permit market forces to work, because

competition leads to the widest variety of consumer choices.

The openness of the data communications marketplace, anchored by the Internet

Protocol, has driven the growth of this incredible medium. The openness of the

telecommunications network, mandated by the FCC, provided an architecture over which

the Internet could reach into a majority of American homes and businesses. Even though

there are calls from numerous sources for the FCC to regulate the Internet, the

Commission has a thirty-year tradition of encouraging its open and unregulated growth.

New challenges like the convergence of technologies will call for new solutions. The

FCC must be prepared to maintain its commitment to fostering the most powerful and

dynamic communications medium of the modern era.

 

64 First Computer Inquiry, 7 FCC 2d at 11, ¶ 2.