This year's U.S. Suprene Court decision about cable companies and Internet access will do harm to our economy and to the small businesses that create jobs because it puts at a disadvantage the 7,000 indpendent Internet service providers (IISPs) around the country. Those firms, while small, serve 7 million customers and employ 75,000 people in a variety of communities. What's more, they spend their earnings in those communities, supporting yet more employment. Those companies are in jeopardy if cable companies can exclude them from their systems.
The legal decision may be correct in the strictest sense, but that doesn't mean there aren't ways to rework legislation that will create a playing field as fair for small business as it is for large corporations. I am asking you to work with your Congressional colleagues to do just this, as well as to make sure the Federal Communications Commission similarly protects an open marketplace.
Small Internet companies are quick, nimble, able to innovate, but mostly they are close to their communities and their customers, meaning they are more in touch with the needs of the market. They not only act as small businesses, they support many other small businesses and serve them in ways large providers simply cannot. A market with no room for small providers is an unhealthy market because it is out of touch with the people who use its services.
At the same time, if cable companies can exclude local providers, control is lost from the grassroots level and surrended to large corporations that are concerned only with their aggregage bottom line. Your constituents work in your district and strive to grow the economy, but they are pawns in the hands of a large company, which would think nothing of disrupting their service or curbing their resources, or even limiting their choices, if such action will satisfy Wall Street. Small, local providers, however, will always support the firms, organizations and neighbors in their communities because they are a part of those places. Consumers need to have such choices available to have the kind of local control that is the foundation of our economy and our federal system. The spirit of your constituents in not found in corporate content control but in the very ethos of the Internet: information wants to be free.
Of course, the court only dealt with cable companies, but the telephone providers are right behind seeking the same favors. That the court seemed to say cable companies are different from telephone companies merely puts pressure on legislators and regulators to correct that disparity. Because both telephone and cable companies do now or will soon provide the same video, voice and data services means they will have to be treated identically. The telephone companies will seek to get the same advantages as the cable companies, further consolidating Internet access in a very few hands, but that would only create a small number of near monopolies, not the competitive market our economy requires.
The very divestiture that begat multiple phone companies is evidence that monopoly power does not benefit the consumer, and the courts know this. The better solution, then as now, is to allow the owners of both cable and telephone networks to profit from their investment in infrastructure by renting space on their networks, not from exercising destructive monopoly power by excluding other services from those networks. There's no reason to take property from large companies, but there is similarly no reason to exclude the small provider and harm the competitive environment. I'm an IISP and I want to continue to operate as one, support my employees and take care of my customers and community. Keeping networks open will make this possible.
A further consideration is not just the competition within served communnities but also access for underserved markets. President Bush wants national broadband access by 2007 so we won't have underserved markets and we will have the Internet's informational power available to everyone. But, as we've seen in the past, large corporations will take the low-hanging fruit first to please their shareholders, which means they will roll out services and capacity to wealthier areas so they can reap the greatest profits. Those on the wrong side of the digital divide are likely to stay there because the margins are not as great serving the masses. The very egalitarian nature of our political and economic systems will be upset by this have/have-not scenario. Yet IISPs are more than happy, as they have been since the beginning of a public Internet, to extend service to all sectors quickly and efficiently. Without appropriate access to broadband lines, the downtrodden, the rural, the heartland of America will be left behind, again. I want to have the chance to reach those people with vital information services so they can have the opportunity to participate and continue to make our nation strong.
Some communities have seen themselves being left out and have acted by deploying municipal networks. Rather than recognize a flaw in their own business model, large companies have chosen to have these networks shut down as unfair competition. Similarly, nascent wireless technologies offer the chance to extend access quickly and efficiently, but their installers will want the same exclusivity cable companies now enjoy. In the interest of consistency, both wireless and municipal networks should be open too so all providers can offer choices to all customers, while investors, be they public or private, can still profit appropriately.
Along with plain access, security is a concern as well, particularly in this age of terror and malware. Large companies have the advantage of resources, but their very size interferes in their ability to adequately protect their customer base. IISPs work closely with their clients, so unusual network activity is obvious to them while it is invisible to the large corporation. Many vigilant people is always better than one. By the same token, if a small provider is compromised, it affects fewer people and serves as a warning to others, while a large corporation with the lion's share of the market will infect millions of customers before the problem is seen and corrected. Diversification is important to national security. And so is creativity. Because they must be nimble to compete, some of the best security innovations come from small, not large, Internet providers, which is evidenced by the government's eagerness to contract small companies to enhance security. There is a role for the large company too, of course, but small providers are an essential piece in our country's security puzzle.
Communication is a vital part of our country and its economic system. I would not argue that there cannot be large companies involved in Internet service, but only that there is a real purpose to having many types of providers. The Court's decision moves us away from an open, competitive arena, but there are ways that you can act to restore a fair system. I ask you to do so not to benefit me but to benefit your constituents and countrymen in a thoroughly democratic fashion.
Information is power, so it should be kept in the hands of the people, not the powerful.
Contact information:
http://www.ii4a.org,
email: isps@ii4a.org or phone
813-496-2122