http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701172.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis?
By Robert M. McDowell
Monday, July 28, 2008; Page A17
The Internet was in crisis. Its electronic "pipes" were clogged with new
bandwidth-hogging software. Engineers faced a choice: Allow the Net to succumb
to fatal gridlock or find a solution.
The year was 1987. About 35,000 people, mainly academics and some government
employees, used the Internet.
This story, of course, had a happy ending. The loosely knit Internet
engineering community rallied to improve an automated data "traffic cop" that
prioritized applications and content needing "real time" delivery over those
that would not suffer from delay. Their efforts unclogged the Internet and laid
the foundation for what has become the greatest deregulatory success story of
all time.
The Internet has since weathered several such crises. Each time, engineers,
academics, software developers, Web infrastructure builders and others have
worked together to fix the problems. Over the years, some groups have become
more formalized -- such as the Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Task
Force and the Internet Architecture Board. They have remained largely
self-governing, self-funded and nonprofit, with volunteers acting on their own
and not on behalf of their employers. No government owns or regulates them.
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. Just as Napster produced an explosion of shared
(largely pirated) music files in 1999, today's P2P applications allow consumers
to share movies. P2P providers store movies on users' home and office computers
to avoid building huge "server farms" of giant computers for this
bandwidth-intensive data. When consumers download these videos, they call on
thousands of computers across the Web to upload each of their small pieces. As
a result, some consumers' "last-mile" connections, especially connections over
cable and wireless networks, get clogged. These electronic traffic jams slow
the Internet for most consumers, a majority of whom do not use P2P software to
watch videos or surf the Web.
At peak times, 5 percent of Internet consumers are using 90 percent of the
available bandwidth because of the P2P explosion. This flood of data has
created a tyranny by a minority. Slower speeds degrade the quality of the
service that consumers have paid for and ultimately diminish America's
competitiveness globally.
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.
Last summer, a new nongovernmental organization, the P4P Working Group, was
formed to find a solution. The group has already field-tested dramatically
increased delivery speeds of P2P content over cable networks (up 235 percent)
and other networks (up 898 percent in some cases). It is working with industry
and consumers to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities."
Such dynamic work is progressing without a government mandate or regulatory
framework. Soon, however, that could change.
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. Comcast
maintains that any interference was imperceptible to consumers, occurred in
minuscule amounts of time, and was limited to peak congestion periods and
areas. Comcast and BitTorrent settled their dispute in March; in fact, they
issued a statement saying in part that "these technical issues can be worked
out through private business discussions without the need for government
intervention."
Despite this settlement, some are calling for the FCC to rule that Comcast's
actions were illegal and should be punished. Others contend that the FCC has no
enforceable rules that apply to such situations and that the issue should be
addressed through a rule-making proceeding, with an opportunity for public
comment, or through congressional legislation. We have examined the arguments
on both sides and are poised to decide the matter this week. But regardless of
what that ruling stipulates, the issue of what constitutes appropriate Internet
network management will be debated for some time.
Our Internet economy is the strongest in the world. It got that way not by
government fiat but because interested parties worked together toward a common
goal. As a worldwide network of networks, the Internet is the ultimate "wiki"
environment -- one that we all share, build, pay for and shape. Millions
endeavor each day to keep it open and free. Since its early days as a
government creation, it has migrated away from government regulation.
If we choose regulation over collaboration, we will be setting a precedent by
thrusting politicians and bureaucrats into engineering decisions. Another
concern is that as an institution, the FCC is incapable of deciding any issue
in the nanoseconds that make up Internet time. And asking government to make
these decisions could mean that every few years the ground rules would change
based on election results. The Internet might grind to a halt in such a
climate. It would certainly die of clogged arteries if network owners had to
seek government permission before serving their customers by managing surges of
information flow.
A better model would allow collaborative groups to continue to do what they
have done for years. If they can't reach an agreement, -- which has never
happened -- then government could examine the situation and act accordingly.
Sometimes shining sunlight on issues produces amazingly beneficial effects, and
the public interest groups that raised the BitTorrent matter should be praised
for doing so. Yet before venturing into the unknown, we should remember
something President Bill Clinton said in 1997: "Governments should encourage
industry self-regulation wherever appropriate and support the efforts of
private-sector organizations to . . . facilitate the successful operation of
the Internet." What we do, or don't do, will affect tomorrow's networks. Let's
stick with what works and encourage collaboration over regulation.
The writer has served on the Federal Communications Commission since 2006.
