Capitol Hill, the Internet, and Broadband

When the Obama administration came to Washington in January of 2009, it promised a new era of accountability, transparency, and change. The marquee issues were health care and financial reform, but federal policies regarding broadband and the Internet clocked in at a very close third.

Besides net neutrality, the new causes include privacy rights for social network users, device openness for mobile phones, pro-fair-use changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, easier line sharing access to the big cable and telco networks, spectrum reform, consumer protections for mobile phone users, and, perhaps most importantly, a national strategy for getting high speed Internet into the homes of most Americans.

Eighteen months later, it is clear that all these reforms are still at play, but their full or even partial enactment is by no means guaranteed. While we believe that a variety of Internet-related changes are in the offing, substantial political- or interest-based roadblocks stand in the way of most of the major reform causes.