CenturyLink Pushed For Net Neutrality Repeal, Now Adorably Calls For FCC To Police Interconnection

You'll probably recall that a few years ago, Netflix streams began mysteriously slowing down for users nationwide. Eventually, Netflix, Level3 and Cogent stated that the problem wasn't on Netflix's end, but was occurring at peering points, where they claimed incumbent ISPs had begun intentionally letting their networks congest by refusing to upgrade capacity. Why? The goal was to kill settlement-free peering and extract steep new troll tolls from content companies that wanted their traffic to reach incumbent ISP customers without, you know, being kneecapped.

These interconnection issues were just a creative evolution of a longstanding efforts by ISPs to abuse their monopoly over the last mile. Level3 made a pretty compelling case that this was little more than glorified extortion. So too did New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose lawsuit against Charter/Spectrum (pdf) argued that ISPs were not only using manufactured congestion to drive up rates for transit and content companies, but had admitted to manipulating this congestion to trick regulatory efforts to measure real-world speeds (starting on page 62, if you're interested).

Regardless, in 2015 the FCC's net neutrality rules gave the FCC the authority to police these interconnection points for anti-competitive behavior, and act if necessary. With the passage of the rules, all of this interconnection shenanigans magically and coincidentally stopped without the FCC having to lift a finger.

Fast forward to last week, when the FCC voted to kill net neutrality rules -- including these interconnection protections. Ironically CenturyLink, one of the ISPs that lobbied for net neutrality repeal, had been urging the FCC to police interconnection squabbles anyway. Why? As the new owner of Level3, the company now has a vested interest in its traffic actually arriving at its destination. In a recent filing with the FCC (pdf), CenturyLink argued that the FCC should try and use its Title I authority to police interconnection:

"Should the Commission adopt an Order reclassifying broadband internet access service as a Title I information service and assert Title I jurisdiction over internet traffic, the Commission should also clearly state that it can and will be available to resolve significant issues related to the associated policies and rules that give rise to such Title I jurisdiction."

CenturyLink proceeds to argue that should the company run into a problem where Verizon suddenly starts letting peering points congest to force it to pay more money, the FCC would step in to police negotiations:

"For example, should the issue arise, the Commission alone is able to determine whether terminating access charges for internet traffic would be consistent with the public interest for the underlying telecommunications and associated voice communications, its obligation to encourage the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability, and to ensure that other jurisdictions do not adopt conflicting policies."

That's adorable for several reasons. One, the FCC has repeatedly made it very clear that it has no intention of policing interconnection shenanigans, and has repeatedly denied that this was ever a real problem. Two, the FCC's "Restoring Internet Freedom" proposal guts FCC, FTC, and states' abilities to police behavior by bad actors. Full stop. The FCC couldn't make it any clearer that they expect the market itself to magically work all of this stuff out. Which, as we already saw, won't actually happen in the uncompetitive broadband market, and certainly not without consumers and competitors getting slapped around for a while.

CenturyLink helped sell the FCC's facts-optional assault on the rules, happy to join the chorus of large ISPs deriding the rules as "draconian," "heavy handed," or "extreme." But the reality is they were some of the most modest net neutrality protections in the world. Rules that were far weaker than those passed in India, The Netherlands, or Canada. And while they really didn't go far enough on some fronts, they provided a base line level of protection to hamper anti-competitive behavior to the benefit of competitors and consumers alike.

Now they're on the way out the door. And Netflix isn't blameless either. Once it could afford to pay these troll tolls, it stepped back from the debate and argued that this was all now the problem of smaller companies. Should the FCC's repeal survive a court challenge in the new year, there's going to be a lot of executives on both sides of the fight that will get to spend ample time laying around in the bed they helped make.

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