FCC Wireless Chief Ruth Milkman on Network Neutrality

A Q&A with Ruth Milkman, head of the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Bureau. She said that Chairman Julius Genachowski's open Internet proposal would allow consumers to bring any phone that isn't locked into a network to another carrier's network. That would mean if you want to bring a Blackberry phone acquired through Verizon Wireless to Sprint Nextel, you could do so at the end of your contract, Milkman says. A draft of Genachowski's proposal, which will be voted on Oct. 22 (the vote will be the beginning of a months-long rule-making process before a final policy is created), also takes into consideration the unique capacity constraints of the wireless network. On the road, a cell phone connection is turned over from one cell site to another, a unique feature of mobile technology that the FCC is looking at as part of this process.