benton's blog

Have three sentences ever generated so much ink? On February 23, 2014, Comcast released the following statement:

There has been a wave of commentary, most of it negative, about Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Many of the columns and op-eds call for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice to stop the deal, but few have explained the process by which such transactions are reviewed.

Since January 14, the telecom world has been asking ‘What will Wheeler do next?’ This week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler delivered his answer.

The most important decision the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has had to make in years is upon it. How this decision comes down will significantly affect the future of our nation’s communications networks. It will profoundly affect each of us as individuals -- and no one more profoundly than America’s minority and diversity communities. That’s because this is not only a communications issue. It is also a critically important civil rights issue. All of us who support the expansion of civil rights need to be in the thick of this decision.

On January 30, the Federal Communications Commission launched a broad set of voluntary experiments meant to ensure that the nation’s communications networks continue to provide the services consumers want and need in this era of historic technological transformations. And the FCC also initiated two new proceedings to collect more input from the public about what many call the IP Transition.

I. Numbering Research [WC Docket 13-97]

Last month’s blockbuster ruling throwing out the key provisions of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 Network Neutrality rules justifies taking a hard look at Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.