The Federal Communications Commission is still on track to address net neutrality, but the agency needs to "get the rules right," Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday.
An April Comcast ruling that questioned the commission's authority over broadband, as well as the joint proposal from Google and Verizon didn't exactly help move things along, Genachowski said during an appearance at the Web 2.0 conference.
"Preserving the openness of the Internet is just obviously important for our global competitiveness," Genachowski said. The FCC must "make sure this platform stays open to innovators, where it's the market and consumers picking winners and losers not people who control access to the Internet."
The FCC proposed formal net neutrality rules in October 2009, but in April, an appeals court ruled that the FCC did not have the right to hand down a 2008 network management enforcement action against Comcast; which prompted the current debate over net neutrality. That ruling, however, created questions about the agency's authority over broadband services.
"We were on a course to adopt smart, sensible rules when we got a frustrating and seriously incorrect decision from the courts that complicated what we had to do," Genachowski said Wednesday. "So we're dealing with that, [but] we have terrific, smart lawyers to figure out the best way" to develop rules. "That'll happen," he said.
"We're doing a lot of work to make sure we get the rules right," Genachowski continued. "We need to make sure that what we do maximizes innovation and investment throughout the eco-system." He insisted that "all the options are still on the table."
In the wake of the Comcast ruling, the FCC proposed a "third way" plan, which would reclassify how the agency views Internet service. But in August, Google and Verizon Wireless teamed up and released a policy plan of their own. The proposal – which would require action by the FCC or Congress to actually take effect - would preserve the openness of the Internet, but provide an exemption for wireless carriers.
Genachowski said Wednesday that having Google and Verizon find common ground on an issue where they previously disagreed was a "good thing" and reflects "the progress that's been made on this issue on establishing basic norms of openness." Otherwise, however, it wasn't entirely helpful.
"I would have preferred if they didn't do exactly what they did when they did, and I think it had an effect of slowing down some other processes that could've led to a resolution," he said. "But there we are with that."
Ultimately, however, the FCC does not want the rules to be developed "by having some government policy makers and lawyers sit in a room and come up with an answer," so input from stakeholders – like Google and Verizon – will be valuable, he said.
Embracing the Spectrum Crunch
One topic Genachowski stressed repeatedly, however, was the need for more spectrum.
"As people go to smartphones and tablets, people put demands on spectrum that's not just a little bit more … but it's 30x, 40x, 50 times more" capacity, he said.
"We actually have a chance to lead the world in mobile broadband. We are going to be one of the very first countries in the world to role out 4G because we did our digital transition relatively early, [and] we also have incredible innovation going on," he said. "The bad news is we know exactly the wall we're going to run into if we don't do something about it."
The FCC took a big step in addressing the spectrum crunch in September, he said, when it opened up access to white spaces, which can provide extended wireless capabilities, sometimes known as "Wi-Fi on steroids," but there's more to be done. The commission has also proposed allowing TV broadcast stations to voluntarily sell off unused spectrum. And, at the behest of the White House, the Commerce Department is in the process of evaluating how it can free up 500 MHz of spectrum in the next decade.
"I worry about [spectrum] a lot because I think the mobile Internet is just going to be incredibly important here and to our global competitiveness," he said.
Wired broadband, meanwhile, is also a majority priority. "It's too hard and too expensive for companies to build out broadband infrastructure in the U.S.," he said. One solution, he said, is to reform the universal service so that monies can be used for broadband. Another option is the "dig once" principle. "If anywhere in the country, someone is digging up a road, they ought to lay down fiber at the same time," he said.
Genachowski was also asked about its Google Wi-Fi data collection inquiry and its review of the pending Comcast-NBC merger, but the chairman said he could not comment directly.
On Google, however, he said that "if a company hypothetically is using spectrum in a way that violates long-standing privacy rules at the FCC, that's something that would fall in our jurisdiction that we'd have to look at."