U.S. policymakers face a virtual conundrum: how to best incorporate the new Internet Protocol (IP)-centric services, applications, and facilities into the nation's pre-existing legal and public policy construct. Over the next several years, legislators and regulators will find themselves increasingly challenged to make the Internet adapt itself to the already well-defined bricks-and-mortar, services-and-technologies environment that exists today under the Communications Act and other statues.

In this paper and in his presentation, Richard Whitt will explain that trying to impose the current outmoded legal system onto the Internet and all its IP progeny is flawed, damaging, and ultimately doomed approach. Instead, policy makers should adopt a new public policy framework that regulates along horizontal network layers, rather than legacy vertical silos.