How to Fight Telecom Gameplaying

[Commentary] The interconnection battle has been framed as one between Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and others on one side and Netflix on the other. A better way to think of it might be to put the eyeball networks on one side and the future on the other.

What about the next Netflix (or any other business that Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, AT&T or CenturyLink view as competitive with their own)? What about all the other businesses that will be affected when Comcast finds the next network connection it wants to squeeze? Here’s what the Federal Communications Commission needs to do: first, it needs to examine how packets are actually being treated at interconnection junctures with the terminating monopoly eyeball networks. Without this close look, the FCC will have no insight into how discrimination is being implemented by the eyeball networks. Then the FCC needs to create rules for interconnection deals between the terminating monopolies and everyone else. These rules could require, for example, that the eyeball networks not be allowed to charge more for interconnection than it actually costs to set up the equipment needed to interconnect. Unless such rules are in place, other businesses and American consumers will continue to be squeezed.

[Crawford is the John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property, Harvard Law School]