House, Senate to tackle open Internet legislation

Network neutrality is bubbling back to the top of Capitol Hill's agenda.

Committees in both houses of Congress hold hearings Jan 21 on proposed legislation designed to protect the open Internet. The hearings come just weeks before the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on its own net neutrality rules. All this activity comes because the FCC's previous set of rules were tossed by a federal court in January 2014.

Congressional Republicans aim to achieve an open Internet by updating communications law to prohibit blocking, throttling and paid prioritization of data. The bill would also sidestep the need for the FCC to use Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 as its authority to regulate the Net. Not all Internet-related businesses agree that the planned legislation, as drafted, solves the problem. The legislation unnecessarily weakens the FCC, said Paul Misener, vice president for global public policy at Amazon.