How should the FCC classify text messages?

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission will consider how to regulate a service that most Americans use every day. No, I’m not talking about the Internet and the Open Internet order. On December 21, the reply comment period closed on the Twilio petition, which asks a truly geeky, yet important, telecommunications question: Is a text message more like a phone call in text format, or more like an email that happens to be sent over the telephone network? The answer could have significant ramifications for the future of texting.

Using voluntary industry guidelines, America’s wireless carriers have built a rich and robust texting market that delivers almost 2 trillion messages each year. The FCC has little basis in law or policy to supplant these guidelines with its own heavy regulatory hand under Title II. Twilio’s request would needlessly disrupt a lively communications market, and the commission would be wise to reject it.

[Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]