Genachowski Headed for Big Win on Net Neutrality Rules
Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn won’t stand in the way of FCC rules on net neutrality proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski, the two Democratic commissioners said Monday. Copps said he'll concur with the order at Tuesday’s commission meeting. Clyburn said she'll vote to approve the rules in part and concur in part. The full order won’t be published for several days, but the commission will release excerpts along with the text of the rules, a senior FCC official said Monday.
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Wireless won’t get a pass, FCC officials said: Rules requiring disclosures and prohibiting blocking will apply to wireless broadband. The order will ban blocking of websites by wireless carriers and blocking of access to applications that compete with the broadband provider’s voice or video-telephony services. A third rule, prohibiting carriers from discriminating among types of traffic on their network, doesn’t apply to wireless. The application to wireless will be reviewed in two years so the commission will have a second bite at that apple.
The rules don’t prohibit paid prioritization outright but say the FCC isn’t likely to consider the practice reasonable, commission officials said. Since the order was circulated, the definition of broadband Internet service has been clarified and the item provides certainty about possible future services. The definition of broadband access explicitly includes anchor institutions such as schools, libraries and businesses, which “cured a huge ambiguity” in Genachowski’s original draft, one FCC official said. Finally, though the order doesn’t extend wireline rules to wireless broadband, it says wireless operators shouldn’t assume that conduct that would be banned for a wireline operator are OK for a wireless operator, the official said. “We're laying the groundwork for future commission action,” the source said.
"I have been fighting for nearly a decade to make sure the Internet doesn’t travel down the same road of special interest consolidation and gate-keeper control that other media and telecommunications industries -- radio, television, film and cable -- have traveled,” Copps said in a written statement. “While I cannot vote wholeheartedly to approve the item, I will not block it by voting against it. I instead plan to concur so that we may move forward.”
"The open Internet is a crucial American marketplace, and I believe that it is appropriate for the FCC to safeguard it by adopting an Order that will establish clear rules to protect consumers’ access,” Clyburn said in prepared remarks. “The Commission has worked tirelessly to offer a set of guidelines that, while not as strong as they could be, will nonetheless protect consumers as they explore, learn, and innovate online."
Genachowski probably will be the only commissioner who votes for the rules without reservation. All five commissioners are expected to offer much longer, more detailed comments at Tuesday’s meeting.
The administration felt “quixotic pressure to fight an imaginary problem” in taking on net neutrality, Commissioner Robert McDowell wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Monday. “The FCC leadership this fall pushed a small group of hand-picked industry players toward a ‘choice’ between a bad option (broad regulation already struck down in April by the D.C. federal appeals court) or a worse option (phone monopoly-style regulation),” he wrote. “Experiencing more coercion than consensus or compromise, a smaller industry group on Dec. 1 gave qualified support for the bad option."
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said the order doesn’t go far enough on wireless. “Net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time,” he wrote on The Huffington Post. “That’s why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too."
"The FCC’s Democratic Commissioners should be applauded for reaching a consensus on rules that will protect network neutrality on the Internet,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. “I commend them for rising to the moment and making possible very meaningful progress to preserve the freedom to communicate and compete over the Internet."
"The nub of the problem with the FCC’s action can be neatly summed up this way: The Commission is acting on dubious legal authority, in the face of widespread, bipartisan opposition, to adopt a new Internet regulatory regime to ‘fix’ a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation.