FCC net neutrality proposal is 'dramatic shift' in policy

U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's decision to seek to formalize net neutrality rules would either bring "unconstitutional" new regulations to the Internet or a welcome "paradigm shift" in U.S. communications policy, depending on whom you talk to.

Genachowski announced Monday that he will ask his fellow commissioners to support a rulemaking proceeding to create formal net neutrality rules that would prohibit Internet providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content and applications. Genachowski also pushed to apply the net neutrality regulations to mobile broadband providers, and he called for an expansion in existing broadband policy principles to prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against Web content and services while allowing them to engage in reasonable network management.

The FCC has been enforcing net neutrality principles on a case-by-case basis since August 2005, but formal rules would ensure that application and content developers on the "edge" of broadband networks can innovate without interference from network operators, Genachowski said in a speech at the Brookings Institution.

"This is the power of the Internet: distributed innovation and ubiquitous entrepreneurship, the potential for jobs and opportunity everywhere there is broadband," he said. "Saying nothing -- and doing nothing -- would impose its own form of unacceptable cost. It would deprive innovators and investors of confidence that the free and open Internet we depend on today will still be here tomorrow. It would deny the benefits of predictable rules of the road to all players in the Internet ecosystem."

But some broadband providers and conservative think tanks suggested Genachowski's plan could lead to burdensome new regulations.

The FCC is currently developing a national broadband plan and Genachowski's proposal might "change the rules of the road" before that's completed, said Ken Ferree, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"I'm troubled to learn that the FCC is embarking on an exercise that would probably result in rules that are unconstitutional and almost certainly beyond the FCC's statutory jurisdiction," he said in an e-mail. "Aside from the legal issues it raises though, I find myself at a loss to understand why the administration wants to start meddling with a sector of the economy that, despite a challenging macro-economic environment, is performing pretty well by any rational standard. It's almost as if they are trying to turn a story of success into one of failure."

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