Hindery: crazy that the FCC believes that broadband companies should be Title II public utilities

[Commentary] Having been at the birthing of network neutrality as the important issue it is today, I feel I should clarify my position: Net neutrality should mean only that telephone and cable companies must be prohibited from building out their networks in ways which leave certain regions, towns, neighborhoods and reservations without high-quality broadband access—i.e., no “red lining”; telephone and cable companies owning programming and Internet content must not discriminate against competing content created by third parties, and Internet users using massive amounts of a distributor’s broadband capacity—“bandwidth hogs”—must pay for that high volume above the charges paid by smaller users of the network. It’s particularly crazy that the Federal Communications Commission believes that broadband companies should now be Title II public utilities, and that they alone among all other utilities cannot employ volume pricing.

[Hindery is the former CEO of AT&T Broadband and its predecessors, Tele-Communications, Inc. and Liberty Media.]