What's next for network neutrality?

Here's how three Washington (DC) telecom lawyers are reacting to a federal court's decision that current law doesn't give the FCC authority to regulate Internet companies' network management practices.

Glenn Richards, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who represents VOIP phone service providers, says, "The Commission can plow forward with its open Internet proceeding. The issue isn't whether they have jurisdiction, it's whether Title 1 gave them the ability to do more. The FCC can regulate broadband networks because they used to do it. They used to regulate DSL. But the court said, under Title I, you've gone too far. What's the likelihood of trying to reclassify? If you read the Commissioners' statements, we've got a 3-2 issue already. The ink wasn't even dry on the decision.... If they do reclassify, I'm not sure they need the open Internet principles anymore, except for maybe the transparency principle. All the other requirements will already be in place."

Former chief telecom counsel for the House Commerce Committee Howard Waltzman, who represents broadband service providers, said, "For the FCC to reverse 12 years' worth of decisions, they'd have to make a factual demonstration that the manner in which broadband services are offered today are different from the time that the FCC viewed broadband as an integrated service. Can the FCC go down the route of reclassifying broadband as Title II? As a statutory interpretation of that, courts would look pretty skeptical.... The routes currently available to [the FCC] in the absence of statutory authority are pretty limited."

Former FCC attorney Charles Zielinski, "Does the decision affect the broadband plan? There are large aspects of the plan that are tied to government support and other avenues that would make it feasible to get broadband out to rural areas. Part of the plan has to do with getting more radio spectrum allocated for wireless broadband. And that really has nothing to do with this decision. There seem to be large parts of the plan that are not affected at all by this decision."