On December 21st, the Wall Street Journal reported that, despite the Harvard Berkman Center Broadband Study’s vocal support for open access (line sharing) requirements, “FCC officials appear to have backed away from the open access idea in recent weeks.”  The FCC’s Blair Levin said “There are certain things where what’s going on in other countries really isn’t germane for where we go from here. … As to (line sharing rules), the courts threw that out and we’re not that terribly interesting in moving toward things that will just freeze capital investment and have long, drawn-out court battles. … That doesn’t strike me as that productive.”

The next day, December 22nd, the Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society posted an interesting item – and sent an interesting email – regarding their Broadband Study for the FCC.  The email said:

In mid-January, the Berkman Center will submit the final draft of Next Generation Connectivity to the FCC.

In the interim, we have made available a “Memorandum Describing Intended Updates to the Final Report,” a substantial piece of research in its own right (congratulations and thanks are again due to everyone who helped with this important work!). The updates described in the memo reinforce the findings of the draft study. The updates include a literature review with an important conclusion: The present unstated consensus in US telecommunications policy circles that open access is a theory in disrepute is without foundation in evidence.

From this outside perspective, its looks like Berkman has gone from…

• A full-throated endorsement of “open access” (forced line sharing), to…

• A follow-up response to criticisms of their report, which largely seemed to acknowledge that their data was “problematic”, inadequate or incomparable, to…

• A final report that dials “open access is the key to success!” back to “you can’t prove open access requirements are a bad idea!”

Early indications are that the FCC isn’t eager to adopt some of the more radical proposals.  (See Blair Levin’s comments around the 10:00 minute mark in this C-Span video) That makes sense.  It is more consistent with the FCC’s own prior recommendations (PDF) that “the Commission should continue to monitor developments in the broadband industry, resist the pressure to regulate this new and innovative industry, and consider regulation only if competitive harms arise.”

Of course, it would be awkward if the FCC’s eventual broadband plan just completely ignored a central claim (however weakly justified) of Berkman’s broadband study.  So, perhaps the Berkman Center has read the writing on the wall and is dialing back their claims to ensure their report and the FCC’s eventual plan bear more of a resemblance to each other.