Missed Aspen Institute’s IDEA Plenary (“a transatlantic dialogue to address common interests in a free and open Internet capable of enhancing economic growth”) held in Brussels, Belgium yesterday?
Not to worry, FCC Chairman Genachowski was there to address the gathered international leaders, and his talk, “The Cloud: Unleashing Global Opportunities”, was posted on the FCC site today.
It was standard Mr. G stump speech on broadband with all the usual regulatory, market, and technical challenges pasted into his Word template. He freshened it up with a remark that the US has adopted a “cloud-first” policy to reduce IT costs.
Zzzzzzz.
Then I was jerked back into consciousness when I read about how our new telecom regulatory framework allows usage-based pricing.
The framework Mr. G. was referring to is the FCC’s Open Internet rules (NET NEUTRALITY) that were adopted in October.
Yes, there’s nothing illegal about pricing tiers and data caps. But in looking at the discussion on usage based pricing in the riveting Notice of Proposed Rule Making Report and Order on OI—the document that Verizion is suing the FCC over— it’s clear that the broadband metering idea is, you know, a debate that the FCC is looking into the FCC was not overly enthusiastic about the idea.
Nothing in his tiny remark to the nations of the world indicate that this is an experiment. I guess that debate is over.
I’m a little grouchy this afternoon
As I wrote recently, there are more than few countries where flat rate, all-you-can-eat broadband is considered a very natural way of doing business.
Have a great weekend.
Update: I was looking at the original Notice of Proposed Rule Making on the Open Internet when I wrote this. It is true the FCC final rules allow usage-based pricing, but the agency does not give it a ringing endorsement. Usage-based pricing is not something I would think you’d want to boast about in a international setting where Japan, Korea, France, and other all-you-eat broadband nations with higher speeds and greater adoption rates are in attendance.
Related articles
- Broadband Data Caps: Worldwide View (technoverseblog.com)
- The Cloud: Unleashing Global Opportunites (fcc.gov)
