Obama’s Call for Net Neutrality Sets Up Fight Over Rules

When President Barack Obama argued for rules to protect an open Internet, he said the regulations should be strong. Just not too strong. Where the line would be drawn remains somewhat unclear, though the implications could be major.

Under the guidelines suggested by President Obama, broadband Internet service would be treated as a utility by the Federal Communications Commission, similar to traditional phone service. But many of the rules that regulate utilities, born of an earlier era, should be ignored, President Obama said. In particular, he said, the government should not try to regulate or dictate the prices that broadband companies charge for their services. To accomplish that, the FCC, if it adopts Obama’s suggestion, would have to specify the elements of the law that should be ignored -- a concept known as forbearance. Virtually everyone agrees that some of the rules written to regulate monopoly telephone service should not be applied to 21st-century Internet service, but there are almost certain to be big disagreements in the months ahead about what rules survive.