Federal telecommunications regulators approved new rules Tuesday that would for the first time give the federal government formal authority to regulate Internet traffic, although how much or for how long remained unclear.
A divided Federal Communications Commission approved a proposal by Chairman Julius Genachowski to give the FCC power to prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic.
The rules will go into effect early next year, but legal challenges or action by Congress could block the FCC’s action. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Tuesday called the FCC’s action “flawed” and said lawmakers would “have an opportunity in the new Congress to push back against new rules and regulations.”
The new FCC rules, for example, would prevent a broadband provider, such as Comcast Corp., AT&T, Inc. or Verizon Communications Inc., from hobbling access to an online video service, such as Netflix, that competes with its own video services.
The rules would also require Internet providers to give subscribers more information on Internet speeds and service. Broadly, the rules would prohibit Internet providers from “unreasonably discriminating” against rivals’ Internet traffic or services on wired or wireless networks.
The rules would allow phone and cable companies to offer faster, priority delivery services to Internet companies willing to pay extra. But the FCC proposal contains language suggesting the agency would try to discourage creation of such high-speed toll lanes.
Companies that operate mobile wireless networks would have fewer rules to contend with. Phone companies wouldn’t be able to block legal websites from consumers. They also can’t block mobile voice or video-conferencing applications. Wireless providers would be allowed to block other applications, however, that they say could take up too much bandwidth on wireless networks.
The five-member Federal Communications Commission board approved the new rules on a 3-2 vote, with the agency’s two Republican members rejecting the measure.
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3 Responses
Your headline is off. The FCC is asserting it has the power under existing legislation to regulate the web traffic. Whether the Congress has given the FCC such power it a separate question, which will be litigated later on, unless the Congress addresses the matter by statute (since the FCC’s powers are defined by the Congress)
The big “loser” in the debate will be firms such as Neflix which “stream” television programs and movies over the internet (and of course, YWN readers don’t know about them, right!?)
If you look at what they passed it does more harm then good. It was written up with the help of ATT and other big telco’s.
People do not realize the danger here. Verizon for instance can still slow down traffic to this site and make it hard to get to and speed up the traffic to say another site.
Why is netflix the loser? Providors can not slow down