What the new net neutrality rules really mean for ISPs

[Commentary] Based on what the Federal Communications Commission has said so far, it's clear that the new network neutrality rules apply only to the on-ramp people use to connect to the Internet, not the content flowing over it. They don't regulate the Internet, they regulate the companies that connect you to it.

The comparison to local phone companies is instructive. Over the course of the 20th century, the FCC and state utilities commissions used Title II of the Communications Act to apply a mountain of rules to the Ma Bell family and other local phone monopolies that regulated their prices, service areas and quality. But those rules never affected what people could say on the phone. To the extent that the content of those conversations was regulated -- for example, the "do not call" rules for telemarketers and the strictures on phone sex services -- those regulations stemmed from other laws, not Title II. Similarly, the FCC is applying Title II only to "broadband Internet access services," not the sites, applications or services that people connect to through their broadband ISP.

The agency is regulating the people who operate the communications equivalent of an essential toll road, not the vehicles or people traveling over it. But what about the aforementioned mountain of Title II rules? Won't they crush ISPs? In a word, no.