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What the WWW of the 1990s can teach us about Internet policy today

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/01/what-the-world-wide-web-of-the-1990s-can-teach-us-about-internet-policy-today/


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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is looking to the early days of the Internet for
inspiration as he seeks to reduce the role of regulation in the
networks that help millions of Americans find jobs, do business and
seek entertainment.

At an industry conference Tuesday in Barcelona, the nation's top
telecom regulator said he plans to use key policy decisions made in the
1990s and early 2000s as a guide for his own agenda.

Those early decisions include, he said, a bipartisan consensus to not
require Internet providers to obey “outdated rules crafted in the 1930s
for a telephone monopoly.” He also cited a Bush-era commitment to give
Internet providers sole control over broadband networks that they
built, rather than adopt a European-style system permitting other
companies to use those same cables to sell competing Internet service.

Such “light-touch” regulation encouraged Internet providers to
continually upgrade their technology, according to Pai, and has driven
society's progression from painfully slow dial-up to massive
fiber-optic networks and ever faster mobile data. Today, broadband
companies are poised to introduce new connection technologies with the
debut of 5G data and a constellation of smart appliances that can
communicate with one another over the Internet.

“A generation ago, a cellphone was a big, clunky piece of equipment
that enabled scratchy voice calls, if you were lucky,” Pai said.
“Today, there are nearly 250 million smartphones in the United States
alone that consumers use for everything from uploading live-stream
videos to playing games.”

By crediting that explosion in innovation to an era of hands-off
regulation, Pai is setting the tone for his own tenure, analysts say.
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-- 
RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>

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What the WWW of the 1990s can teach us about Internet policy today RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-03-02 16:11 -0500
  Re: What the WWW of the 1990s can teach us about Internet policy today "Kerr Mudd-John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2017-03-06 13:33 -0100
    Re: What the WWW of the 1990s can teach us about Internet policy today RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-03-07 09:31 -0500

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