A primer to Minnesota’s undeclared Broadband Week

Somebody must have declared it Broadband Week in Minnesota.

Last night two of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission took part in a gathering aimed at promoting the idea of "net neutrality."

Next Tuesday, a third commissioner, Chairman Julius Genachowski, is speaking at a session organized by Sen. Amy Klobuchar. That will include a panel discussion among key Minnesota players in the effort to make high-speed Internet access available to every resident. Rick King, head of the governor's task force that helped set state goals last year, will be there; so will people involved in getting high-speed access to places like Lac qui Parle County and the Gunflint Trail in the Arrowhead region.

Related to that, the state Commerce Department this week appointed a new task force of 15 industry, government and education representatives charged with watching over MInnesota's effort to reach the goal of universal high-speed coverage. The chair is JoAnne Johnson, manager of government and external relations for Frontier Communications' central states region.

Meanwhile, the flow of federal stimulus money continued when the government announced another $23 million for three Minnesota projects that will extend and improve broadband access. That puts the state total at about $150 million with more likely to come before the stimulus broadband money runs out next month.

How do all these developments relate?

First, net neutrality is getting most of the attention these days. It's a huge conversation bringing into play the strengths and weaknesses of free enterprise and the wisdom or lack of it in regulating it. It's also really complex, not readily digestible into sound bites. (Although, if you need one, in political terms, it boils down to how much power Congress and the courts should let the FCC have.)

Here's my stab at it:

Definition: Net neutrality is a philosophical approach to the Internet holding that all access should be equal. Proponents talk about it in terms of something that exists and should be preserved. But already you can be forgiven for being confused because discrimination exists on the consumer end today. If I want more speed I can pay more. Nobody is seriously suggesting a change to that system, but there are expectations that once I pay I have certain rights that shouldn't depend on how much I pay. Just be clear that there is a spectrum of possibilities, not simply an either-or.

The argument against net neutrality:

I'm Comcast and I watch as an application like Skype comes along that lets people see and talk to one another around the world in real time. It's one of the many applications that is making the Internet such a force. You can talk to and see your fiance in Spain or your son in Afghanistan. But because it demands the movement of lots more data in lots less time, it puts a big stress on my wires, threatening to bog down my service to everybody.

Therefore I, Comcast, want to charge Skype more than you the text-only blogger for access to my wires. If I can't do that, then I won't have the money to create bigger, broader and faster networks that reach more people in the future and encourage even more innovation like an even better Skype. If I can't do that and still want to upgrade my service, I guess I can charge everybody more, including people who don't even know what Skype is and just want to email their kids. But if I do that, some of my customers will go away.

In other words, government rules that restrict me in this way stifle my ability to invest and therefore others' ability to invent.

The argument for net neutrality:

I have invented a better-than-Skype way to communicate with people around the world. But I can barely keep the heat on in my garage, let alone pay Comcast a high fee to make my invention available to consumers on the Internet. Even though I've built a better mousetrap, the world is prevented from beating a path to my door.

And what's more, when I give up on entrepreneurship and go sit down at the computer to while away the day, I fear that Comcast, with its freedom, is somehow giving a speed and access advantage to content it owns by virtue of its (proposed) merger with NBC Universal. Maybe they would even block content coming from a competitor.

In other words, giving Comcast and other service providers carte blanche to discriminate among content providers stifles me as an inventor and inhibits me as a consumer.

So there are some large arguments on each side. Where you stand might be related to your overall attitude toward capitalism and regulation, although it seems to me we'll get some of both no matter how this comes out. The ideal solution would maximize the combination of creativity, access, investment incentive and profit.

That takes us to the question of Klobuchar's panel discussion next week and the quest to get high-speed access available to all. What's the connection between net neutrality and that?

The pro-Comcast team argument is, I think, that net neutrality prevents investment in their systems. Unserved, rural areas would suffer from this lack of investment. Others would be mightily skeptical of that contention. These investments, the net neutrality people argue, could create an even larger digital divide by enhancing service in the lucrative markets and leaving rural areas unable to make a marketplace argument to be treated better.

Meanwhile, there's a debate brewing over the concept of universal access. The FCC's national broadband plan envisions an acceptance that some remote areas simply cannot expect service as fast as other areas. And indeed, a Pew poll this month reported that most Americans don't think universal service should be a high government priority. Others say that leaves them in a second-class status unable to compete in the economy of the future. Minnesota's roadmap to the future does not envision that divide.

The federal stimulus money is one way to bridge some of the gap, starting fiber projects and encouraging education in underserved areas. But that will end, leaving a marketplace-regulation-government investment debate for unserved areas to continue within the spectrum of the net neutrality decision.

Take Cook County, for example, where residents and businesses have been trying for years to figure out how to get high-speed Internet access to the northeastern tip of Minnesota. Set aside the apparently strong chance they'll get federal stimulus money in the coming weeks. Without that, are those people more likely or less likely to see good service with net neutrality?

You tell me.

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