Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Keyword
-
- Communications Law (13)
- Law and Technology (13)
- Computer Law (12)
- Network neutrality (10)
- Science and Technology (9)
-
- Administrative Law (6)
- Arts and Entertainment (6)
- Intellectual Property Law (6)
- Peering (6)
- Interconnection (5)
- Open Internet (5)
- IPTV (4)
- Next generation networks (4)
- Open internet (4)
- Regulatory Reform (4)
- FCC (3)
- Internet compensation arrangements (3)
- Internet interconnection (3)
- Internet Protocol Television (2)
- Ancillary jurisdiction (1)
- Broadband (1)
- Common carriage (1)
- Cyberlaw (1)
- Empricial research (1)
- Ex ante regulation (1)
- Ex post regulation (1)
- First Amendment (1)
- ISP (1)
- Information service (1)
- Internet peering (1)
- File Type
Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Communications Law
The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
At the Internet’s inception, carriers providing the bit switching and transmission function largely embraced expanding connections and users as a primary service goal. These ventures refrained from metering traffic and charging for carriage based on the assumption that traffic volumes roughly matched, or that traffic measurement was not worth the bother in light of external funding from government grants. Most Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) bartered network access through a process known as peering in lieu of metering traffic and billing for network use. As governments removed subsidies and commercial carriers invested substantial funds to build larger and faster networks, identifying …
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not unlawfully impose common carrier duties on private carriers. The Commission now has opted to reclassify broadband Internet access as common carriage, a decision sure to trigger a third court appeal. The FCC Open Internet Order offers several, possibly contradictory, justifications for its decision to apply Title II of the Communications Act, subject …
Network Neutrality And Consumer Demand For “Better Than Best Efforts” Traffic Management, Rob Frieden
Network Neutrality And Consumer Demand For “Better Than Best Efforts” Traffic Management, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper assesses whether and how ISPs can offer quality of service enhancements, at premium prices for full motion video, while still complying with the new rules and regulations established by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) in March, 2015. The paper explains that having made the controversial decision to reclassify all forms of Internet access as a telecommunications service, the FCC increases regulatory uncertainty. In particular, the FCC has failed to identify instances where “retail ISPs,” serving residential broadband subscribers, can offer quality of service enhancements that serve real consumer wants without harming competition and the ability of most content …
The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper will examine new models for the carriage of Internet traffic with an eye toward providing insights on how the interconnection process has changed and what positive and negative consequences have resulted. Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) interconnection used to constitute a cooperative undertaking, but now it increasingly requires difficult and protracted negotiations between ventures that consider themselves adversaries in a winner take all transaction. The paper concludes that new commercial arrangements, such as paid peering, can achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. However, the paper also identifies instances where migration from traditional interconnection arrangements can harm consumers by reducing some of …
Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Approaches To Network Neutrality: A Cost Benefit Analysis, Rob Frieden
Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Approaches To Network Neutrality: A Cost Benefit Analysis, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
Many advocates for less intrusive government oversight of telecommunications support the migration from regulation by an expert agency to the use of adjudication remedies largely guided by antitrust/competition policy principles. They believe that competition authorities, or reviewing courts can resolve disputes after they have occurred in lieu of having expert regulatory agencies available to anticipate and resolve problems before they become acute. Such ex post remedies typically determine whether anticompetitive conduct has occurred and what marketplace harm has resulted. Advocates for retaining so-called ex ante regulation believe that an expert agency remains essential particularly in light of fast changing market …
What’S New In The Network Neutrality Debate, Rob Frieden
What’S New In The Network Neutrality Debate, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
For over ten years, academics, practitioners, policy makers, consumers and other stakeholders have debated whether and how governments should regulate the Internet with an eye toward promoting accessibility, affordability and neutrality. This issue has triggered grave concerns about the Internet’s ability to continue generating substantial and widespread benefits. Advocates for various outcomes have vastly different assessments about many baseline subjects including the viability of sustainable competition and self-regulation. Consumers become agitated and confused by different framing of the issues, particularly when participants in the Internet ecosystem cannot reach closure on interconnection and compensation issues. Increasingly these disputes trigger temporary degradation …
Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a single channel and in only one presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can offer …
The Costs And Benefits Of Regulatory Intervention In Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes: Lessons From Broadcaster-Cable Retransmission Consent Negotiations, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper considers what limited roles the FCC may lawfully assume to ensure timely and fair interconnection and compensation agreements in the Internet ecosystem. The paper examines the FCC’s limited role in broadcaster-cable television retransmission consent negotiations with an eye toward assessing the applicability of this model. The FCC explicitly states that it lacks jurisdiction to prescribe terms, or to mandate binding arbitration. However, it recently interpreted its statutory authority to ensure “good faith” negotiations as allowing it to constrain broadcaster negotiating leverage by prohibiting multiple operators, having the largest market share, from joining in collective negotiations with cable operators. …
Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits., Rob Frieden
Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits., Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a single channel and in only one presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can offer …
New Models And Conflicts In The Interconnection And Delivery, Rob Frieden
New Models And Conflicts In The Interconnection And Delivery, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
As the Internet has evolved and diversified, interconnection terms and conditions have changed between Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”). These carriers experiment with alternatives to conventional models that classify interconnection as either peering or transiting. The former typically involves interconnection between high capacity carriers whose transoceanic traffic volumes generally match thereby eliminating the need for a transfer of funds. Historically smaller carriers have paid transit fees to larger Tier-1 ISPs for the opportunity to secure upstream links throughout the Internet cloud. With the growing availability of bandwidth intensive, video content carried via the Internet, traffic volume disparities have increased between ISPs. …
Net Bias And The Treatment Of “Mission-Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Net Bias And The Treatment Of “Mission-Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any distribution format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a particular channel and in a single presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can …
Rationales For And Against Fcc Involvement In Resolving Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes, Rob M. Frieden
Rationales For And Against Fcc Involvement In Resolving Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) provide end users with access to and from the Internet cloud. In addition to providing the first and last mile carriage of traffic, ISPs secure upstream access to sources of content via other ISPs typically on a paid (transit), or barter (peering) basis. Because a single ISP operates in two separate segments of traffic routing, both the terms and conditions of network interconnection and the degree of marketplace competition can vary greatly. In this double-sided market, ISPs typically have many transit and peering opportunities upstream to content providers, but downstream end users may have a limited …
From Bad To Worst: Assessing The Long Term Consequences Of Four Very Bad Fcc Decisions, Rob M. Frieden
From Bad To Worst: Assessing The Long Term Consequences Of Four Very Bad Fcc Decisions, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Far too many major decisions of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) rely on flawed assumptions about the current and future telecommunications marketplace. If the FCC incorrectly overstates the current state of competition, it risks exacerbating its mistake going forward if actual competition proves unsustainable, or lackluster. In many key decisions the FCC cited robust competition in current and future markets as the basis for decisions that relax restrictions on incumbents, abandon strategies for promoting competition, or apply statutory definitions of services that trigger limited government oversight. The Commission ignores the secondary and tertiary consequences of decisions that deprive it of …
Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden
Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Much of the policy debate and scholarly literature on network neutrality has addressed whether the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has statutory authority to require Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner. Such analysis largely focuses on questions about jurisdiction, the scope of lawful regulation, and the balance of power between stakeholders, generally adverse to government oversight, and government agencies, apparently willing to overcome the same inclination. The public policy debate primarily considers micro-level issues, without much consideration of broader concerns such as First Amendment values. While professing to support marketplace resource allocation and a regulation-free Internet, the …