OTI Director, Sascha Meinrath, Testifies at FCC Workshop on Broadband Consumer Context

Washington, DC -- "Policy-making has continued under a self-imposed veil of ignorance," challenged Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative at today's Federal Communications Commission workshop on Broadband Consumer Context.  When we address the question "'What is the consumer context in the United States today?' The quick answer is that nobody knows."

Data is essential for both consumers and policy-makers to make informed decisions, Meinrath explained. The current lack of transparency and data privatization "has created disastrous outcomes for network science, basic research, policy-making, and the general consumer welfare."
As the FCC formulates a National Broadband Plan, Meinrath offered  "we cannot hope to build a national broadband policy that brings America into the digital future without a solid understanding of what is happening on our networks today." "Today's ISPs diligently work to ensure that the public has access to as little information as possible-preventing consumers from making an informed decision."

Mr. Meinrath proposed three areas in need of immediate action by the FCC:

1. For the past 4+ decades, the FCC has ensured that consumers are empowered to attach the devices of their choice to a wireline telephone system.  Clearly the same mandate should apply to a phone system that is wireless.

2. The same Internet information that was publicly available from the NSFnet of the mid-1990s should be publicly available today.  By allowing the continuing obfuscation of this information, the FCC is harming network science and ensuring that decision-makers will not have the information necessary to make informed broadband policy.

3. Consumers should have access to all the information necessary to make an informed decision about and comparison among the service offering options.  This information should mirror what is made available to business line users and should spell out explicitly minimum levels of service and provide baseline SLA-esque guarantees.

The full testimony is available at: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/resources/2009/prepared_testimony_sascha_meinrath_fcc_workshop_broadband_consumer_context

A video will be available courtesy of the FCC at: 
http://www.broadband.gov/ws_consumer_welfare.html

For interview requests, please contact Kate Brown at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.

About the Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. For more information, visit, http://www.newamerica.net

About the New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.