Regulating The Internet Not So New

REGULATING THE INTERNET NOT SO NEW
[SOURCE: InternetNews.com, AUTHOR: Roy Mark]
"The Internet was regulated from the start," says Amazon's Paul Misener. "[Until recently], there was never a time when at least part of the Internet wasn't heavily regulated." Misener is quick to point out those Internet regulations included mandated network neutrality. Now they do not. So what happened? Brand X did. In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that cable broadband providers are information services and do not have to share their lines with competing Internet service providers (ISPs). The ruling prompted a Santa Monica, Calif.-based ISP named Brand X to sue the FCC for open access to cable lines. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which last summer ruled the FCC was within its regulatory authority to exempt cable modems from common carrier obligations. "The court did not say the FCC ruling was correct or incorrect, only that it had the regulatory discretion to make the ruling," Misener said. The FCC then extended the same exemption from common carrier regulations to telephone companies offering broadband service. The two FCC rulings had the practical effect of doing away with the slew of regulations mandating network neutrality that came out of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. "We want to reinstate a part of the many rules that used to govern access to the Internet," Misener said. "We want to blow up this one change to give consumers a real choice."
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3610281