NCTA's McSlarrow: BitTorrent Opens Only Theoretical Floodgate

National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow said Tuesday that theoretically, it could be open season for network management in the wake of the BitTorrent decision, but that as a practical matter he did not expect much, if anything, to change while the Federal Communications Commission is considering its options on responding to the court.

McSlarrow also thinks there is room under Title II to support some form of network neutrality proposal without moving to a Title II regime. Following a panel session at the American Cable Association convention, McSlarrow was asked what operators could do in terms of managing their networks the day after the decision that they couldn't do before. "I don't know that anything has changed," he said. "No one was managing bandwidth in a way to inflict consumer harms, they were managing bandwidth in a way to deal with congestion. "Theoretically, I suppose you could do anything," he added, "but I think, in the real world, we made commitments that we support the FCC's Internet policy statement. We have always abided by it and we stand by the statement. And that is the reality that our operators and, more importantly, the engineers that work with the CEOs are trying to implement."