About That Senate Vote On Net Neutrality

[Commentary] One could almost say that the Nov 10 network neutrality vote was a telecom-free vote. It was more about partisanship and gamesmanship than about policy.

That’s because the shadow of real Open Internet rules that the Federal Communications Commission approved were the result of a deal that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski cut with AT&T to keep wireless access to the Internet largely out of any Open Internet scheme. While AT&T and Verizon, which is challenging the rules in court, probably wouldn’t object if the Senate voted to overturn the rules, they weren’t making an overt campaign of it in Congress as the vote neared. Those companies also are smart enough to know that whatever vote total occurred wouldn’t be enough to sustain a Presidential veto. In the end, the fight for an Open Internet, on Nov 10, came down to another misleading attack on Big Government, and overwhelming regulation done by unelected bureaucrats and all sorts of other rhetoric that bore only a faint resemblance to reality. What is undeniably real is that an Open Internet, a truly Open Internet, benefits everyone, from Google to the single-person blog.

It’s a shame that posturing politicians who make use of the online medium every day won’t recognize that reality and strive to make certain that it would be a good use of governmental authority to make sure the Internet remains controlled by consumers, not by those who provide the on-ramps and set the tolls.