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FCC Trying to Salvage 'Net Neutrality' Plan

Editor's note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series concerning universal broadband connectivity.

U.S. regulators are reconsidering the rules that govern high-speed Internet connections — wading into a bitter policy dispute that could be tied up in Congress and the courts for years.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 on June 17^thto begin taking public comments on three different paths for regulating broadband. That includes a proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to define broadband access as a tele-communications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally.

Genachowski's proposal is a response to a federal appeals court ruling earlier this year. On April 6^th, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The court ruling also potentially undermines the FCC's ability to act on several key recommendations in its national broadband plan. That includes a proposal to expand high-speed Internet access by tapping the Universal Service Fund, the federal program that subsidizes phone service in poor and rural areas.

For persons with disabilities (PWDs), the court ruling is problematical.

Before the ruling, the FCC's national broadband plan had recommended establishing an ongoing accessibility and innovation forum to promote the use of collaborative, problem-solving processes among a diverse group of stakeholders, including industry, consumers, academics, researchers, students, assistive technology vendors, third-party application developers and others. The group was to discuss what would be required to supplement traditional regulatory processes, to investigate best practices and to learn from PWDs what they would need, what works and what doesn't. The future of the forum now is uncertain.

The ruling is a blow to legislation introduced last summer by Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.), H.R. 3101, the “21^st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act." The proposed legislation would have clarified the FCC's mandate to regulate telecommunications, including broadband and wireless communications.

In articulating a comprehensive vision for broadband accessibility, the FCC had endorsed, in some cases verbatim, the policy objectives of H.R. 3101. The FCC's national plan had called for the application of existing federal telecommunications requirements to Internet-based mobile and other technologies, a wider availability of video description, the need for video programming devices and program menus for PWDs, especially those with vision loss, and the necessity for more comprehensive emergency information access to address, for example, the needs of people whose visual impairments prevent them from reading the information that crawls across the bottom of a television screen during emergency situations.

To address barriers to services and equipment, the broadband plan recommended updating accessibility regulations of Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as well as hearing aid compatibility rules. To ensure that broadband connectivity reaches the greatest number of people, no matter their place of residence or economic status, the FCC plan had recommended that every library, community center and community college have at least 1 gigabit per second bandwidth capacity. This has been called the "100 Squared Initiative," which would guarantee an affordable 100 megabits per second broadband connection to 100 million households.

Genachowski's plan to define broadband access as a telecommunications service has the backing of many big Internet companies, which say it would ensure that the FCC can prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over broadband connections to determine what subscribers can do online.

Genachowski's plan faces resistance from the broadband providers themselves, including AT&T and Verizon Communications. They say it opens the door to onerous and outdated regulations that would discourage them from upgrading their networks.

The FCC currently defines broadband as a lightly regulated information service. But in April, the federal appeals court ruled that that approach does not give the commission the authority it needs to proceed with Genachowski's plan to adopt "network neutrality" mandates, which would bar broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against traffic traveling over their networks.

Supporters of network neutrality, including many big Web companies, say such rules are necessary to prevent phone and cable companies from blocking or degrading online calling services, Internet video and other applications that compete with their core businesses. Indeed, the recent appeals court decision grew out of a challenge by Comcast to a 2008 FCC order directing the cable company to stop blocking subscribers from accessing an online file-sharing service used to trade video and other big files.

Comcast and other broadband providers insist they need flexibility to manage their networks and ensure that certain applications don't hog too much bandwidth. They also fear that net neutrality mandates would prevent them from offering premium services on their networks to earn a healthy return on their investments.

-- Associated Press, with reporting by IT correspondent Penny Reeder.