Why Doesn't Anyone Talk About Convergence Any More?

Abstract

Papers delivered in the mid-90s at TPRC, the leading international networking policy conference, reveal that a strong consensus prevailed around the proposition that competition was a better way to discipline broadband markets than regulation. This was not simply a political consensus, but the collective view of a very distinguished group of scholars, regulators, and industry figures.

In the early 2000s, the deregulatory consensus began to fracture. The 2002 TPRC proceedings emphasized institutional adaptation to the Internet as well as Internet adaptation to institutions. As the introduction to the proceedings points out: “Because technologies are embedded in social systems and are understood in this context, responses to new technologies may be as varied and complex as the social systems that incorporate (or reject) them.”

While the policy status quo of the mid-‘90s was closely aligned with technical developments in the Internet engineering space such as DiffServ and Intserv, net neutrality advocated a retreat to a more primitive Internet that was less powerful, less socially disruptive, and less challenging to regulate.

The policy retreat was a surrender from the difficult task of creating novel regulatory paradigms for the convergence economy. The current legal status quo maintains deregulation for applications but regulates communication networks with traditional telephone network rules and constructs. The regulatory status quo doesn't please anyone but telecom regulators: carriers, the engineering community, and "edge services providers" have all expressed disdain for the application of common carrier regulations to the Internet.

Because the Internet will be with us for a very long time, this paper suggests it's best to view the retreat to a neutral network as a temporary inconvenience. It proposes a novel regulatory paradigm consistent with Internet's technical capabilities and with the mid-90s consensus.

Keywords: internet, broadband, regulation, convergence, net neutrality

JEL Classification: L5, L90, L96, L97, L98