Research Information System
Third Annual International Conference on Social Sciences (AICSS) 2017, İstanbul, Turkey, 26 October 2017, pp.22
This paper analyzes the Open Internet Order declared by the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) in the US and derives some insights for Turkish communications policies. Following the Telecommunications Act of 1997, the legal barriers against consolidation of telecommunications companies and media companies were removed by the FCC. The following two decades have been a period of consolidation between these two sectors. The vertical integrations formed with the internet service providers, media companies, and audio-visual content producers. This consolidation brought a contradiction between policy goals. On the one hand, consolidated companies’ investment performance rose, as the vertical and horizontal integrations strengthened financial capacity of the companies. The regulatory holyday declared for internet service providers encouraged vast infrastructure investment. On the other hand, the competition has been regressed by the consolidation. The consolidation of the media producers with the telecommunications operators raised concerns on freedom of expression. Consequently, the Open Internet Order, which is a net neutrality regulation, came into force in 2015 to limit the scope of consolidations. I argue that, these policy issues are to be in the agenda of the Turkish communications policy too, as the vertical agreements are formed among Turkish operators and digital television platforms in the recent period. As the penetration of the internet service rises in Turkey, the commercial and political implications of this consolidation are to get more significant. In this respect, I produce an analysis of regulatory framework and level of consolidation in Turkey, and a foresight of policy.
Keywords: net neutrality, telecommunications policy, communication