Singer Makes Case for Case-By Case Approach to Discrimination

Look for economist Hal Singer, senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, to promote a case-by-case approach to regulating Interenet discrimination complaints.  

Singer is among the panelists for the FCC's second-to-last network neutrality forum Thursday (Oct. 2) at the FCC in Washington.  

According to prepared remarks, Singer, who points out that he has worked with independent cable nets on a number of discrimination complaints before the FCC, plans to say that economists and engineers who have looked at the issue believe paid priority could (emphasis Singer's) be a good thing for all concerned, including consumers. He says they could be used for "bad" as well as good, like anticompetitive favoring of an ISP's own content. But that, for instance, the packets associated with telemedicine demand better treatment than those carrying a cat video. That is why all priority deals should not be banned. 

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John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.