2015 offers a network neutrality solution

[Commentary] Network neutrality is quickly nearing a crescendo and is now a congressional issue. There is both good and bad to Congress getting in the game.

First, the bad: rules around network management should be grounded in the realities of engineering, and network management practices quickly get quite complex. Because some techniques can be abused, even unwittingly, rules of the road and ongoing oversight is absolutely appropriate. At the same time, many network management techniques, including forms of traffic differentiation, are necessary, unobjectionable and unequivocally good for consumers.

The good: With news that Republicans are working to craft an alternative to the Title II morass that President Obama would be willing to sign, supporters of even stringent Internet regulations should see a way out of this mess.

The reaction of the Internet populists over the next several weeks to legislative proposals will once and for all answer the $64,000 question: Is their end-game really an open Internet? If so, they would fail Washington Politics 101 to not jump at this once-in-a-decade chance to lock in stringent rules that would survive a switch in Federal Communications Commission control. Or has net neutrality always been a populist stalking horse for complete reversal of policy -- policy which, by the way, has seen the Internet flourish through the prior five FCC chairmen -- opting instead for the imposition of a government-controlled Internet to liberate the "captive audience" of Internet users from the controlling hand of "big broadband." My bet, alas, is on the latter and that they cast their lot with Title II. By all means, then, take that risky swing for the Title II fences. Then we can keep debating net neutrality for another five years.

[Atkinson is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation]