The FCC Chairman’s Many Excuses

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[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has been defending his latest network neutrality proposal, but t’s get one thing straight: He is not backing off his plan to hand the keys to the Internet over to the cable and phone industries.

The chairman told the cable industry to “put away the party hats” because he’s not actually going to kill network neutrality. But his proposal is the same plan offered by the largest cable and phone companies, which have tried to kill network neutrality for almost a decade. Since 2006, the phone and cable industries have proposed a world where they won’t “block” any websites, but they will simply create a lane for all websites and then charge anyone who wants better service for a fast lane. They have fought a nondiscrimination rule for at least eight years, using tens of millions of dollars. The tolls for the fast lane may be tied to bandwidth or a company’s revenue. Finally, the cable and phone giants want this world to have no clear rules -- just vague principles about what might be “commercially reasonable,” which is an invitation for small companies to sue the giants if they’re unhappy. Since the cable and telephone companies have more FCC lawyers than most companies have employees, they will scare off most potential companies suing and then beat the rest in “FCC court.” That’s basically what the chairman is backing -- the often proposed AT&T/Verizon plan.

[Ammori is a Future Tense fellow at New America, a practicing lawyer, and a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet Society]


The FCC Chairman’s Many Excuses