WASHINGTON-Wireless trade association CTIA officially came out against net neutrality, posting a policy paper on its Web site against efforts to include network neutrality language as part of Congress’ efforts to reshape existing telecom laws.
CTIA posted its position on the topic June 21, but did not publicize it until last week when it appeared at the bottom of its sponsored news-clipping service.
“We don’t have to put out a press release for everything,” John Walls, CTIA vice president of public affairs. “We have priority items.”
That was a good move, said one wireless analyst. “The wireless carriers have purposely not let themselves get dragged into the net-neutrality debate. They let the parents look like the bad guys. The debate was going their way. The battle for pre-emption didn’t get any stronger by them weighing in on net neutrality,” said Roger Enter of Ovum.
The wireless industry has been largely ignored in the network-neutrality debate even though the nation’s two largest carriers already restrict access to Voice over Internet Protocol, video and other bandwidth-hogging services. The prohibitions contained in data customer contracts are done for service-quality reasons, but would seem to run counter to the Stevens language. Senate Commerce Committee staff said the language was not intended to allow such prohibitions, even though there is a network-management exception.
The CTIA policy is based on the core belief that competition is the best regulation. With regulation, innovation and investment will be stifled; without regulation, niche markets will be created.
“We want the capability for carriers to structure offerings that make sense for their networks and business plans,” said Carolyn Brandon, CTIA vice president of policy.
Current business offerings are structured with services and applications being exclusive (on-deck) or generally available via the Internet (off-deck). CTIA’s official entree into the network-neutrality debate comes as non-affiliated companies are trying once again to make money offering off-deck services directly to wireless customers. The wireless marketplace has been dominated by data available on the deck-the carrier’s menu of applications and services on a mobile phone. Recently, though that has begun to change as the amount of off-deck traffic has grown from anywhere between 5 percent and10 percent to 25 percent.
Also, some of the legislation surrounding network neutrality did not acknowledge the differences in the wireless-broadband experience vs. the wired experience.
“The wireless networks are very dynamic. There is a relationship between the device and the network,” said Brandon. “We need to have control over that relationship. The network management needs we have are unique because of the radio-frequency aspect.”
RCR Wireless News Reporter Colin Gibbs contributed to this report.
