Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler, fresh from voting to use Title II regulations to enforce net neutrality, took to the stage at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday to defend that decision and to discuss the recently-concluded AWS-3 auction.
The U.S. t elco watchdog late last week narrowly voted in favour of adopting a modified version of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 as the legal framework for regulating net neutrality. The rules reclassify broadband providers as common carriers, opening them up to closer scrutiny over how they manage traffic on their networks. They will apply to both fixed and mobile carriers.
"If the Internet is the most powerful, pervasive platform in the history of the planet, which I believe it to be, is it not fair that we should have a referee? Someone to hold a yardstick?" He asked in an on-stage discussion with GSMA director general Anne Bouverot.
The decision was praised by consumer advocacy groups and online service providers, and heavily criticised by Verizon, which said the U.S. government had imposed "rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph."
The age of the Communications Act was also mentioned by Bouverot, but Wheeler was quick to defend it, pointing out that the FCC has adopted elements of the law that will grant it the power to prevent blocking, discrimination, paid prioritisation, and improve transparency, but not the power to impose tariff regulation.
"It’s about as far from old-style regulation as you can get," he insisted, noting that the Title II rules have 48 sections "and we’re not using 27 of them."
Billions for bandwidth
Wheeler also discussed the AWS-3 auction, which raised nearly $45 billion, far exceeding the $10 billion the FCC expected.
Bouverot suggested that high up-front prices for spectrum may limit the ability of telcos to invest in their networks.
Wheeler disagreed, arguing that the price per MHz per capita was reasonable in proportion to the amount of revenue earned by carriers. Indeed, the $45 billion raised in the AWS-3 auction roughly translates to $2.17 per MHz per capita. By comparison, it was approximatel y $0.75 in the FCC’s last major auction, the 700-MHz auction of 2008.
"I don’t think the CFOs of any of the bidders fell off the turnip truck and said ‘let’s just keep bidding’," Wheeler said. "Everybody bids to a budget."
As far as Wheeler is concerned, availability of spectrum is one of three critical components of "the magic elixir" that fosters innovation, the other two being openness and competition.
"Competition is the best friend the consumer ever had, and the best friend the innovator ever had," he said.
