the commons & common carriers

Some people regard the telephone network as a "commons,"

because the telephone companies have been regulated as "common carriers"

by the FCC. Today, the Commission simply defines

"common carrier" as "the term used to describe a telephone

company." But the underlying idea (which the FCC may have forgotten

in this deregulatory era) would apply just as well to railway lines or

postal services as to AT&T. A true common carrier agrees to move any

good, message, or person (depending on the medium) from anywhere in its

system to anywhere else for a price that depends only on factors that

affect its own costs, e.g., distance and weight or duration. A common

carrier may not discriminate on the basis of the content of the

message or the identity of the customer. For example, a telephone

company may not refuse to carry a phone call because of the speakers’

political views, nor may it charge different fees for different kinds

of speech. A common carrier railroad would have to carry any passenger

from any point A to any point B.

To preserve the common carrier ideal, regulations traditionally prevented

owners of communications systems from providing other services. This was

because firms that provided "content" as well as the "conduit"

would tend to discriminate in favor of their own services. For example,

if the telephone company provided 1-900 services, then it would be tempted

to give its own calls preferential treatment. For similar reasons, cable-TV

providers might give their own channels favored treatment, if they were

allowed to offer programming.

A common carrier telecommunications system is an important base for the

Internet, because it allows digital messages to be transmitted regardless

of their content, thus keeping the Internet uncensored and flexible. But

is a common carrier system a commons? We experience a classic commons

as collective property or as no one’s property—as "free."

I do not think that we view telephone lines as common property. If they

resemble a commons, it is for a combination of three reasons: (1) the

common carrier rules; (2) the very low marginal cost of each minute of

use, at least for local calls; and (3) government programs that have brought

telephones into most homes, even in rural and poor urban neighborhoods.

If any of these three conditions were missing, then the telephone system

would not feel like a commons. This is a significant conclusion because

it suggests that three types of regulations are necessary preconditions

of the Internet as we know it.