F.C.C. Approves Net Rules and Braces for Fight

Amplify’d from mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

December 21, 2010, 1:55 pm F.C.C. Approves Net Rules and Braces for Fight By BRIAN STELTER 4:00 p.m. | Updated The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved a new set of rules that are intended to preserve open access to the Internet. There was disagreement Tuesday about whether the F.C.C. had the legal authority to adopt the network neutrality rules, and that authority was certain to face legal challenges in the months ahead. Nonetheless, the approval represented a significant progress toward fulfilling a campaign promise by President Obama to preserve a level playing field for Web developers. Mr. Obama congratulated the F.C.C. on Tuesday’s vote and said in a statement that the government would “remain vigilant and see to it that innovation is allowed to flourish, that consumers are protected from abuse, and that the democratic spirit of the Internet remains intact.” At the commission meeting in Washington, the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski, said the steps taken by the commission were historic. “For the first time,” he said, “we’ll have enforceable rules of the road to preserve Internet freedom and openness.” The rules are set to take effect early in 2011. The vote on the rules split along party lines, with two Democratic commissioners joining Mr. Genachowski to gain passage. Two Republican commissioners vocally opposed the rules, and one, Robert McDowell, warned that “the F.C.C. has provocatively chartered a collision course with the legislative branch.” Some Republican members of Congress decried the new rules as an excessive display of government regulation, and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, signaled that his colleagues would “push back” next year. The F.C.C. indicated that the rules would not be published in full until later in the week. In short, the rules will forbid fixed-line broadband providers like Comcast and Qwest from blocking access to sites and applications. The rules would allow wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T more latitude in putting limits on access to services and applications. Verizon’s initial reaction to the passage of the rules left the door wide open for legal remedies. “While it will take some time for us to analyze the F.C.C.’s rules and the order once they are released, the F.C.C.’s decision apparently reaches far beyond the net neutrality rules it announced today,” the company said in a statement. “Based on today’s announcement, the FCC appears to assert broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband wireline and wireless networks and the Internet itself. This assertion of authority without solid statutory underpinnings will yield continued uncertainty for industry, innovators and investors. In the long run, that is harmful to consumers and the nation.” Other providers were more optimistic about the rules. Comcast said in a statement that “the rules as described generally appear intended to strike a workable balance between the needs of the marketplace for certainty and everyone’s desire that Internet openness be preserved.” Many Internet providers, developers and venture capitalists had indicated that they would accept the compromise as outlined by Mr. Genachowski. But a wide swath of public interest groups have lambasted his proposal as “fake net neutrality” and said that it was rife with loopholes. On Tuesday, one such group, the Media Access Project, said, “There is a reason that so many giant phone and cable companies are happy, and we are not. These rules are riddled with loopholes. They foreshadow years of uncertainty and regulatory confusion, which those carriers will use to their advantage.” The media mogul Barry Diller said in an interview that he thought the compromise was “as much as could be done” by the F.C.C. He said the rules are “going to deter the bad behavior that I think was coming closer and closer.” That “bad behavior” is largely theoretical to date, but as the Internet becomes the pipeline for all the world’s text, audio and video, there are likely to be more clashes between the owners of the pipe and the people who want to supply innovative content through it. According to Mr. Genachowski, the rules will prohibit the blocking of “lawful content, apps, services and the connection of devices” to wired residential networks. They will also prohibit “unreasonable discrimination” of data. The rules will require transparency about the network management practices of providers, and that will have an “important deterrent effect on bad conduct,” he said on Tuesday. Notably, the rules will be watered down for wireless providers. While they will be prohibited from blocking Web sites, they will be allowed to block all applications and services, except for the ones that directly compete with providers’ voice and video products, like Skype. (Skype praised this particular rule on Tuesday.) Mr. Genachowski said the rules were different for fixed-line and wireless access because wireless has more technological hurdles and is at a more nascent stage of growth. He indicated that the F.C.C. would stay vigilant: “Any reduction in Internet openness would be a cause for concern, as would any reduction in innovation and investment in mobile broadband applications, devices or networks that depend on Internet openness.” It remains to be seen how the F.C.C. will react to perceived violations of the principles outlined on Tuesday. The rules come with major caveats; for instance, they allow for “reasonable network management” by broadband providers. (“Reasonable” is a word that has many different definitions, Mr. McDowell noted in his remarks.) Notably, the rules would not expressly forbid something called “paid prioritization,” which would allow a media or technology company to pay the provider for faster transmission of data. But “we are not approving” it either, Mr. Genachowski said. One of the loudest critics of the F.C.C. rules on the left, Senator Al Franken, said Tuesday that the action taken by the commission was “simply inadequate to protect consumers or preserve the free and open Internet.” He singled out the possibility of “paid prioritization,” which he said was equivalent to “allowing big companies to pay for a fast lane on the Internet and abandoning the foundation of net neutrality.” Read more at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

 

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