I'm actually in the process of reading it now.. What from that paper do you want to assert as your argument though?
Why not start here?
The R&O (
op. cit., §§21-32) cites chapter and verse
of all the incentives and opportunities that broadband
ISPs have to abuse their position to enhance their
profits at the expense of application/content providers
and their own customers.8) The concerns expressed
are concerns about the economics of broadband ISPs,
but nowhere in the R&O can we find anything
approaching an economic analysis of these hypotheses
(or allegations). In fact, one has to read the R&O very
closely to find any empirical support whatsoever that
any of the suspect behaviors the FCC seeks to prevent
have actually occurred. In fact, the FCC produces four
examples:9)
• In 2005, Madison River Communications., in its
role as a broadband ISP in North Carolina, blocked
its customers from using Vonage, a VoIP voice
phone provider that competed with Madison River’s
main telephone business. After complaints to the
FCC, Madison River paid a $15,000 fine and stopped
the practice.
• In 2007-08, Comcast was interfering with BitTorrent
traffic (a video P2P site) it claimed was congesting
its network. The FCC issued an order prohibiting
their network management practices. Comcast duly
changed its practices but took the FCC to court
claiming it lacked jurisdiction. The DC District
Court agreed, and the issue was remanded to the
FCC.
• A letter from the ACLU alleged that a mobile
service provider had blocked the use of an
application because it had a competing application.
This issue apparently never made it to the formal
complain stage.
• In 2009, Apple and AT&T blocked the use of WiFi
connectivity rather than AT&T’s own 2G and 3G
services on their successful mobile iPhone. The
issue was resolved by the FCC.
So in over a decade, there were only four examples
of purported misconduct (one which was denied by
the courts and another which didn’t even rise to the
level of a complaint) for the entire broadband ISP
industry. By any standard, four complaints about
an entire industry in over a decade would seem to
be cause for a commendation, not for restrictive
regulations.
The FCC acknowledges this lack of evidence of
actual wrongdoing by referring in the R&O to
the proposed rules as “prophylactic,” or preventive.
Their purpose, therefore, is to prevent things from
happening that haven’t actually happened thus far.
Further, the R&O (§4) acknowledges explicitly that
“…[the rules] incorporate longstanding openness
principles that are generally in line with current
practices and with norms endorsed by many
broadband providers.” If the rules are indeed aligned
with current practices and norms, then why, it might
be asked, do we need them?10)
If we have had a decade of experience with
broadband ISPs with little evidence of wrongdoing,
how can network neutrality advocates support their
demands for government net neutrality regulation? If
there has been no problem for the past decade, is there
any reason to suspect that such problems are right
around the corner?