Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis?

[Commentary] The Internet has flourished because it has operated under the principle that engineers, not politicians or bureaucrats, should solve engineering problems. Today, a new challenge is upon us. Pipes are filling rapidly with "peer-to-peer" ("P2P") file-sharing applications that crowd out other content and slow speeds for millions. While we at the Federal Communications Commission are trying to spur more competitive build-out of vital "last mile" facilities, especially fiber and wireless platforms, this congestion will not be resolved merely by building fatter and faster pipes. Since the fall, the FCC has been considering allegations filed by public interest groups that cable operator Comcast violated FCC rules by "managing" or "interfering with" the upstream flow of certain P2P video applications, namely those of a company called BitTorrent. The allegations boil down to a suspicion that Comcast was motivated not by a need to manage its network but by a desire to discriminate against BitTorrent for anticompetitive reasons. Some are calling for the FCC to rule that Comcast's actions were illegal and should be punished. Regardless of what that ruling stipulates, the issue of what constitutes appropriate Internet network management will be debated for some time. What we do, or don't do, will affect tomorrow's networks. Let's stick with what works and encourage collaboration over regulation.