Notes from the FCC Hearing on the Future of the Internet

If you couldn't be at yesterday's FCC hearing at Carnegie Mellon University, here's what you missed:

* Over 45 minutes of keynotes to open the hearing, in which all 5 commissioners + Representative Mike Doyle thanked each other for being there (repeatedly), then told the audience what we were all about to hear (also repeatedly). We spent so much time talking about what we were about to hear, I barely had time to hear anything at all.

* Internet pioneer and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban read from his laptop and told us that the future of the internet will be... 3-D?

* John Peha, a CMU professor, read from a Power Point presentation in which he raised numerous (legitimate) questions about fair competition, fair use and copyright infringement -- i.e., what happens when an ad for one cable company is embedded in a video streamed over a competing cable company's broadband? What's the difference between protecting one's brand and restricting user access to information?

* Mark Cavicchia (CEO of WhereverTV) spoke about the need to expand bandwidth limitations to allow for decreased restrictions on "capped limits" for broadband users. For example, under some proposed broadband service plans, you could expend your entire allotment of Gigabytes for the month just by downloading one (legal) movie file. That doesn't help anyone -- least of all the markets the film and internet industries are trying to establish.

* Nathan Martin from DeepLocal spoke at rapid speed about the regulatory issues constraining his company. Lots of good points, summed up with, "Why could we do "TASK X" 3 years ago, for free, and in a matter of days, whereas now it would cost us tens of thousands of dollars and take up to 6 months to be approved by regulatory commissions? You have the pipes; let me compete."

* David Eun from Google talked up the existence of YouTube as a repository for the most amazing educational content on the planet -- some valid points, but delivered in that kind of slow, belabored way that made me think he'd rather not be speaking on a panel.

And then it was 5:30 and I had to leave, even though the hearing would be stretching on until 8 o'clock. (Peripheral lesson learned? If the FCC can't even stick to a schedule when moderating a hearing, what else is the government unable to manage?) However, I was impressed with the rhetoric of the FCC commissioners themselves -- especially Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who (along with Rep. Doyle) gave me the best impression that the government is very aware of what's at stake in the internet's battle between private intellectual property, corporate interests and the public good.

Let's just hope they can solve these thorny problems in less time than it took to introduce these panels...