Wireless carriers again avoid strict rule against blocking apps

The Federal Communications Commission asked a lot of questions in its latest network neutrality order. One of them is whether the commission should start treating fixed broadband and cellular Internet as one and the same for the purposes of no-blocking and anti-discrimination rules.

But for now, the commission is continuing the course it's taken previously by treating fixed and wireless Internet differently. Like the 2010 Open Internet Order that was largely struck down by a federal appeals court ruling, the latest Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) lays out rules for ISPs to follow on disclosing network practices, blocking applications and websites, and discriminating against Internet services.

But cellular carriers such as Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile face less strict rules than fixed (e.g. wired) Internet providers, allowing them to block applications that don't compete against their telephony services.