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Well, well, look at what's been added to a tentative agenda when the
FCC meets on December 21st: net neutrality. Here's how the item reads:
Open Internet Order: An Order adopting basic rules of the road to
preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment,
competition, and free expression. These rules would protect consumers'
and innovators' right to know basic information about broadband
service, right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic, and right
to a level playing field, while providing broadband Internet access
providers with the flexibility to reasonably manage their networks.
Presumably, a draft order is now circulating amongst attendees, the
details of which are of the utmost concern for both consumers and
wired / wireless providers alike. According to the AP, FCC Chairman
Julius Genachowski will outline his net neutrality proposal in a
speech on Wednesday, with plans to bring the new rules to a full vote
before the end of the year and ahead of the newly elected Republicans
taking their seats in the House.
Update: The AP received an advanced copy of Genachowski's speech. Here
are the highlights of the FCC proposal:
Wired broadband providers will be required to let subscribers
access all legal content, applications, and services with the
flexibility to manage network congestion and spam as long as they
publicly disclose their network management approach. Broadband
providers would also be allowed to experiment with dedicated networks
to route traffic from specialized services like smart grids and home
security systems as long as they "don't hurt the public internet."
Wireless providers would also be required to disclose network
management practices and be prohibited from blocking access to web
sites or competing applications like cellphone VoIP services. However,
they'd be given more flexibility to manage traffic due to relative
bandwidth constraints. In other words, wireless networks will still be
special under the FCC proposal, just not as special as the plan
pitched by Google / Verizon (which only required transparency) over
the summer.
The proposal would leave the FCC's regulatory framework for
broadband unchanged as a lightly regulated "information service," not
as a "common carrier" as Genachowski had wanted. Another victory for
Comcast.
Update 2: The New York Times says that the proposal will allow
broadband companies to implement usage-based pricing, charging
customers higher rates for heavy data usage.
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