MSU’s Quello Center is launching a study of the impact of net neutrality.
With the support for net neutrality regulations at the FCC, and in the White House, the debate should quickly move from theoretical speculation to empirical realities: What will be the actual impact of net neutrality regulation?
The net neutrality debate has galvanized a wide variety of stakeholders in opposing camps around the wisdom of this regulation on the future of a global, open and secure Internet. Proponents argue that net neutrality will keep the Internet open and in line with its early vision by not advantaging those who can pay for fast lanes, while opponents have raised numerous concerns about the role regulation could play in constraining efficiency, competition, investment, and innovation of the Internet and patterns of its use by individuals, households, business and industry. It has become a politically and commercially contentious issue that has become increasingly partisan and commensurately over simplified around competing positions. However, from all sides of this debate, the implications are expected to be of major importance to the future of the Internet in the US, but also globally, as other nations will be influenced by policy and regulatory shifts in the United States.
It is therefore important that claims about the value and risk of net neutrality become a focus of independent empirical research. In many ways, the FCC’s decision on net neutrality presents an opportunity for a natural experiment that will provide real evidence on the actual role that net neutrality will play for actors across the Internet and telecommunication industries, but also users and consumers of Internet services.
Academic research needs to be analytically skeptical and seek to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions on both sides of the debate with empirical research and analysis. The Quello Center is well positioned to conduct this research. It was established by an endowment in honor of former FCC Commissioner, James H. Quello, to study media and information policy in a neutral and dispassionate way. The Center’s endowment provides the independence and wherewithal to launch this project with an eye towards expansion of the project if justified by the support of its Advisory Committee, sponsorship and other sources of funding, such as foundations concerned with the social and economic futures of the Internet.
The project will be led by Professor Bill Dutton, the new Director of the Quello Center. Before taking this position, Bill was founding Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Internet Studies at the University of Oxford. Other MSU and Quello faculty involved in this project include:
- Professor Johannes Bauer, Director of the Department of Media and Information in MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences;
- Adam Candeub, Professor of Law & Director of MSU’s Intellectual Property, Information & Communications Law Program;
- Professor Jay Pil Choi, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics; and
- Professor Steve Wildman, Professor of Media and Information, and Chief Economist for the FCC in 2013, while on leave from MSU.
Staff of the Quello Center, including Mitchell Shapiro, and an Assistant Research Professor for whom a new search is underway, will be committed to this project, and we will develop collaborations with faculty and practitioners with an interest in supporting and joining this research initiative.
The Quello Center welcomes expressions of support and offers of collaboration or sponsorship on what is an important albeit complex and challenging issue for policy research. If you wish to comment on, or support this research initiative, please contact Bill Dutton, or any of the faculty associates.
Contact: Professor Dutton at Quello@msu.edu
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