Robert McDowell

1/2 of the worlds population has a mobile phone. 3.3 billion phones, 6.6 billion people. Many of those phones have more computing power than an Apollo spacecraft. WIth Moore's law and better spectrum use (which doubles every 2.5 years), we can improve.

Internet usage increases...Yahoo! uses more bandwidth than the entire 'net did alone a few years ago. CBS' March Madness site has grown 109% since last year.

McDowell presumes that no one can keep track of the chaos in the marketplace...especially not 5 unelected bureaucrats.

"Regulation should be saved for market failure..."

McDowell presented the WGA strike as an example of how the New Media market has become ubiquitous, citing how they shut down television over royalties from online downloads, and that the market has provided "a la carte" programming through sides like Hulu.

He sees this trend moving to mobile, also. 

Regarding an a la carte mandate, McDowell believes that consumers would pay more and get less, and that according to one analyst, ESPN could cost $25/month under a la carte.

Why was this a question? Why didn't it happen?

First, he believes a la carte violates the first amendment. Also, consumers need big pipes of content is to be ubiquitous, because 5% of users consume 90% of bandwidth. This isn't just an American problem. 1% of Japanese users consume 50% of broadband. McDowell observed that pirated content is a big part of that bandwidth. (he referred to the Comcast-Bittorrent settlement announced today.)

(more on that later)

McDowell said he's not convinced that the BitTorrent matter is moot, but that Net Neutrality advocates should "be careful what they wish for" 

He asked if now is the time to "discard the Wiki model" of the Internet that has led to its' success? He believes that success has come through market forces. He speculates that if government had regulated broadband, we'd be using ISDN.

With regard to content provider and broadband disclosure, he believes that the private sector should take the lead, and cites the Comcast settlement as an example.

McDowell thinks that the best way to help is competition. Example? 700mhz auction. While he said the goal was to bring "new blood" into the market (Verizon? AT&T? nice job.) he feels that the Open Access requirement hampered the bidding and kept more companies out because it's a "government mandate." 

McDowell wonders if the Open Access requirement pushed small companies out, and points out the C block and B block prices per population in a DMA were very different. 

His concern was that it traded smaller and rural providers for the "speculative gains" of an open access network. He also says open access was coming anyway, pointing to T-Mobile's Wi-FI/GSM phones, and Android. What he's ignoring is that without Open Access, providers could just ban them. Also, was Verizon going to do "any app, any device" before the Open Access requirement? That's a chicken and egg scenario.

He says that the Open Access was to bring in a new party, and it never happened. However, with spectral efficiency doubling, he thinks a future FCC will allow entrepreneurs to enter the wireless broadband market. Example: TV White Spaces. He thinks we should let "science and science alone" resolve the issue. McDowell is very, very optimistic about White Spaces. Good.

When asked if given authority for 3 changes he'd make, he said that he believes the FCC is "well functioning." One change he would make is with regard to the sunshine in government act, and he would allow more than 2 Commissioners to meet with each other to discuss issues. He believes the requirement breaks down collegiality and information flow, and that their advisors can meet, but the Commissioners cannot. He'd also like private parties to speak to each other more before asking the FCC to intervene. Not bad.

In response to questioning, McDowell does not believe that broadband providers are not inherently anticompetitive w/r/t network management. He's not sure that the FCC governing the Internet is not the right way to go. 

When challenged on the fact that the telecoms were going to open access and only embraced it after the ruling, he responded that the telecoms were not opposed to the "concept, only the mandate." He'd rather let the telecoms speak for themselves. 

Link Hoswing from Verizon got up and did say that Verizon had been looking at open access for more than a year because they saw it as a growth opportunity.

I'm going to try and get some time with the Commissioner later, but he seems quite reasonable. Very impressive.