Contact:
Mark Cooper
Director of Research
Consumer Federation of America
301-384-2204
Policy Leaders Identify Open Architecture as the Key to Internet’s Broadband Future
New book warns that FCC policy shift jeopardizes innovation and economic growth
WASHINGTON – In a book released today, leaders in Internet policy and other telecommunications experts explore new, technology-neutral approaches to preserving open communications networks and the freedom of the Internet. Open Architecture as Communications Policy details how network neutrality is imperative for the future of an innovative high-speed Internet, cautioning regulators not to impose legacy telecommunications regulation on Internet Protocol-based applications.
The book, edited by Mark N. Cooper and published by the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School, grew out of a forum on Capitol Hill cosponsored by CIS and the Consumer Federation of America.
“The book brings together many of the best minds on the convergence of communications technology and public policy and some of the strongest advocates of open architecture as the underpinning of the success of the Internet,” Cooper said.
“This book is especially relevant now, as the FCC attempts to reverse its 35-year long commitment to ensuring open, nondiscriminatory interconnection and carriage of data services on the nation’s telecommunications networks. Open architecture at the heart of the Internet and telecommunications networks created an environment for dynamic innovation and the widespread adoption of the Internet.
“With two cases pending Supreme Court review, a dozen proceedings ongoing at the FCC, and talk of a rewrite of the 1996 Telecom Act in the air, the future architecture of the Internet hangs in the balance. It is critical for policy makers to have a full appreciation for the importance of principles of open architecture as public policy.”
The book combines several classic works on open architecture and public policy with new essays and empirical studies from John W. Butler, Vinton G. Cerf, Earl W. Comstock, Mark N. Cooper, Michael J. Copps, Robert E. Kahn, Mark A. Lemley, Lawrence Lessig, Richard S. Whitt, and Timothy Wu.
The book is available for download at no charge under a creative commons license here.
Requests for review copies of Open Architecture as Communications Policy can be sent to Mark Cooper at mcooper@consumerfed.org.
Paper copies of the book are available from Amazon.
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Book Summary:
Open Architecture as Communications Policy
Mark N. Cooper, Editor
Open architecture is the design principle on which the success of the Internet and information technologies rests. In this book, founders of the Internet and its most ardent defenders describe how open architecture was implemented in the end-to-end principle of the Internet, open interfaces of the personal computer, and nondiscriminatory interconnection and carriage for communications networks.
Empirical studies examine the convergence of technology and public policy that created a dynamic environment for decentralized innovation, rapid technological change, and strong economic growth. The digital communications platform became a general-purpose technology with a transformative power equaling or exceeding the great industrial technologies of a century earlier – railroads, electricity, and telecommunications.
Legal analyses demonstrate that the Federal Communications Commission inexplicably turned its back on the thirty-five year record of success of its Computer Inquiries, which ensured nondiscriminatory access to communications services. Case studies document the chill on innovation that results when owners of advanced telecommunications networks are allowed to close the platform, exclude service providers, restrict applications and limit the availability of network functionalities.
The book explores new, technology-neutral approaches to preserving both open communications networks and the freedom of the Internet.
Contents/Contributors
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps established the policy context for the Capitol Hill symposium that gave the impetus for the book (Broadband Technology Forum: The Future Of The Internet In The Broadband Age, March 26, 2004) with a challenge for the “Internet in the broadband age… We need to make sure that it continues to foster freedom and innovation, that the openness that is its hallmark has a future every bit as bright as its past.”
Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf, What Is the Internet (and What Makes It Work)?, INTERNET POLICY INSTITUTE (1999, revised 2004), provide a brief discussion of the architecture of the Internet through the chronology of the development of its fundamental technologies. Both of the authors were at the center of the creation of the seminal technologies. They are keenly aware of the role of institutions and public policies in the creation of the Internet.
Mark A. Lemley, Professor of Law at University of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Center for Internet and Society, include a paper presenting a discussion of the design principle of the Internet: The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era, UCLA LAW REVIEW (2001). Not only does it explain how the design principle operates to promote innovation, but also it directly refutes many of the economic arguments made by those who would abandon, or allow the network facility owners to abandon, the end-to-end principle and open communications networks.
A study by Mark N. Cooper, Making the Network Connection, takes a broad view of the impact of the Internet. It attempts to use network theory and recent analyses of technological change to reinforce the long-standing claim that the open architecture of the Internet represents a fundamental change and improvement in the innovation environment. It concludes with an examination of the role of Internet Service Providers in the spread of the Internet. In a second Chapter entitled Anticompetitive Problems of Closed Communications Platforms, which draws from an earlier paper Open Communications Platforms: Cornerstone Of Innovation And Democratic Discourse In The Internet Age, JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY LAW (2003), Cooper demonstrates the increased possibility of anticompetitive practices by firms that dominate key points of the digital communications platform. It links the potential harm back to the network theory by presenting a case study of the elimination of Internet Service Providers.
Timothy Wu, University of Virginia Law Professor, provides a detailed study of the customer contract provisions that threaten or infringe on the freedom for consumers to use the Internet and applications in a paper entitled Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination, (first published in JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY LAW (2003), which also attempts to precisely define the characteristics of the Internet that should be preserved. Wu also includes a new analysis (from Broadband Policy: A User’s Guide, Journal OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY LAW, forthcoming) that reviews several aspects of the current policy debate and offers a recommendation of nondiscrimination. Lawrence Lessig joins Wu in a formal proposal for network neutrality that was presented to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an ex parte filed at the FCC.
Earl W. Comstock and John W. Butler, partners in the same firm, combine legal analysis from Access Denied: The FCC’s Failure to Implement Open Access as Required by the Communications Act, JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS LAW AND POLICY, (2000) with the legal brief filed on behalf of Earthlink in the second case heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals involving broadband (Brand X v. FCC, 345 F. 3d 1120 9 9th Cir. 2003). Comstock and Butler show why the FCC has had so much trouble convincing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that its approach to deregulating advanced telecommunications networks fits under the statute. Twice the Court found that the obligations of nondiscrimination and interconnection of Title II of the Communications Act apply to cable modem service. The detailed recounting of the history and purpose of the Computer Inquiries that runs through the legal arguments is a strong reminder that the FCC adopted the correct policy over 35 years ago when it recognized the fundamental importance of nondiscriminatory access to the essential telecommunications function of the network on which applications and services ride.
The book concludes with a discussion of Horizontal Leap Forward that combines a paper by Richard Whitt of MCI that formed the basis for Vinton Cerf’s comments to the forum and a letter from Cerf to Chairman Powell and Secretary of Commerce Evans. The paper picks up and develops the distinction between transmission and applications as it is being discussed in regard to contemporary digital networks. Whitt attempts to synthesize the emerging thinking about reforming regulation of communications by moving from the old vertical view, in which industries are regulated because of their underlying technologies or the services they provide, to a horizontal view, in which similar functionalities are treated similarly across networks, regardless of which technology is used. Open architecture at the physical or transmission layer is the key policy advocated in the paper.