Copps: Cable-ization of Internet is a danger to America

Speaking at the Future of the Internet Public Hearing in Minneapolis, Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps said:

I think most of you understand how important the Internet and access to high-speed broadband are to the future of our country. This incredible technology intersects with just about every great challenge confronting our nation-whether it's jobs, education, energy, climate change and the environment, news, international competitiveness, health care or equal opportunity. There's no solution for any of these challenges that does not have a broadband component to it. We have a technology now with more power to bring about good than any communications advancement in all of history. The question is: will we use it in such a way as to maximize its small "d" democratic potential-or will we turn this, too, over to the special interests and gatekeepers and toll-booth collectors who will short-circuit what this great new technology can do for our country?

The Internet was born on openness, flourished on openness and depends on openness for its continued success. Easy to say-not so easy to guarantee. We must not ever allow the openness of the Internet to become just another pawn in the hands of powerful corporate interests. The few players that control access to the wonders of the Internet tell us not to worry. But I am worried. How can we have any confidence that their business plans and network engineering are not going to stifle our online freedom? You know, history is pretty clear that when some special interest has control over both the content and distribution of a product or service -- and a financial incentive to exercise that control -- someone is going to try it. That's a monopoly or an oligopoly or whatever you want to call it -- I call it a danger to America.

And the present danger is that big business will put us on the road to the cannibalization, cable-ization and consolidation of broadband and the Internet. Oh, the special interests tell us not to worry. New technologies always work for the public good. Broadcasters said just give us a ton of free spectrum -- hundreds of billions of dollars as it turned out -- and the airwaves would always serve the people first. You saw what happened there! Then cable came along and said they would fill the holes in the road that broadcasting ended up creating -- you know what happened there when you look at the programs you get and, worse, the bills you get. In both cases, we were too quick to take their word. Now the big Internet service providers give us the same pitch: "Don't worry; be happy; we would never compromise the openness of the Internet." After what happened to radio and television, and after what happened to cable, should we take their word? I don't think so!