ISP Sonic CEO talks about broadband policy, net neutrality

A Q&A with Dane Jasper, co-founder of Sonic, a Santa-Rosa (CA) based Internet service provider.

Asked, "Why do you support net neutrality and the FCC’s just discarded privacy rules?"

Jasper said, "I think it’s good business to take care of your customers. Your customers will be loyal to you when you take good care of them. That might be good pricing. That might be good customer service. Or it’s that you don’t sell them out to advertisers or that you don’t engage in practices that would violate their privacy for whatever small commercial gain that you might have. Also, I think the ecosystem of the internet is something that needs to be preserved. As I’ve watched the internet blossom from the early start of my career more than 20 years ago, I am stunned by the wonderful ideas and amazing services that people have put together. And they’re the reason that every day, consumers are signing up for Sonic. It’s important to preserve neutrality so we can continue to see great new ideas come to fore, even if those ideas use a ton of bandwidth, or even if those ideas require really low latency."

Q FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has criticized the net neutrality and privacy rules as being examples of “heavy-handed regulation” and regulatory “overreach.” He’s argued that cutting such regulations will increase competition, lower prices and get higher speeds to broadband consumers, because it will encourage innovation on the network side and will free things up so that you can get investment on the network side. What do you say to those arguments?

A One of the things Pai has said is if you regulate broadband like it’s a monopoly, you end up with a monopoly. That’s not entirely unfair. If there is a vibrant, competitive environment with many, many choices, then I think that bad behaviors will be held in check, and innovation in business model and infrastructure and in the network won’t be a bad thing.

In today’s environment, though, where consumers have, in many cases, only one choice at greater than 25 megabits, what we see is rent-seeking behaviors and abuses of the consumer, whether it’s bad customer service or expensive pricing or network neutrality concerns.

Q Has Sonic’s ability to innovate been affected by the FCC’s decision under Obama to re-regulate broadband?

A No. And we certainly supported former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in his efforts to protect network neutrality. And that didn’t hamper our investment or our concerns about our future ability to monetize the networks that we build.