The reprint of a New York Times article slugged “FCC expands its control of the Internet” (Herald, Feb. 27) had the facts correct, but the headline is needlessly provocative. What the FCC has done is to extend the rules governing the old copper-cable based “wireline” voice network to the current reality wherein we can send and receive all types of information across fiber-optic networks.
The government grant of monopoly status to the old Bell that built the early copper phone network was predicated upon using cross subsidies. Bell would be allowed to charge higher fees in densely populated cities where daily operational/maintenance costs were lower, so that they had the spare change needed at the end of the day to run the copper phone line down a country road to reach that single farm house.
Today’s best networks are built using fiber. The carrying capacity is theoretically unlimited, constrained only by the speed that electronics can convert the light signals into electrical pulses to make the video chat, the movie or CAT scan understandable. What the FCC has done by its new rule is to get CenturyLink, Verizon and AT&T to manage their fiber networks much as they managed their copper network from the 1930s until they became market-driven in 1996 and started dropping fiber in the trenches without the old rules. That’s it.
And as for the canard claiming that the federals are taking over the Internet, an analogous claim would be a city full of modern skyscrapers exists only because it has plumbers and plumbing.
The big carriers did squat to make the Internet what it is. What the FCC action has accomplished is create a mechanism to get fiber down the country road. We don’t know where the next Newton or Einstein is growing up, maybe she lives east of Breen. She needs all the modern advantages – after all, our grandparents did this for us.
Robert Rosenberg
Durango
