COMMISSION OPENS ‘NET NEUTRALITY’ INQUIRY

摘要

The FCC voted 5-0 Thurs. to launch a study of network management practices among telecom and cable broadband providers, though Comrs. Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein said the agency should have taken stronger action. The Commission approved a net neutrality notice of inquiry (NOI) asking how telecom companies manage networks, whether there’s evidence of discriminatory practices and whether the FCC should expand 4 non-binding net neutrality “principles” it wrote in 2005. The NOI asks if a 5th principle should be added to encourage “nondiscrimination,” FCC officials said at the meeting. An NOI is “a starting point” that could lead to more action, said Comr. Deborah Tate. But the agency shouldn’t rush, since Commission action can have a “stifling effect” and there isn’t evidence of discrimination, she said. nnCommission Democrats wanted more: “Putting out a notice of inquiry is not the way to sail boldly forward,” said Copps: History shows “if someone has the capacity to control something, they are going to try.” The FCC could guard the “genius of the Internet” in a rulemaking rather than merely gathering data, he said. Adelstein voted for the inquiry because it “focuses the spotlight” on net neutrality, but would have preferred “a more proactive approach such as opening a notice of proposed rulemaking,” he said. Public Knowledge blasted the NOI as essentially a “bureaucratic process [that] will delay by months, if not years, the crucial action needed to guarantee that consumers will always have access to an open and non- discriminatory Internet.”