Julius Genachowski FCC Chair wants Internet neutrality

New FCC policy called Network Neutrality would restrict ISPs right to shape traffic and control content

With story from the Washington Post

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a speech the FCC wants to level the playing field for the public’s access to the Internet.

Citing restrictions in traffic bandwidth and Comcast’s refusal to allow BitTorrent peer-to-peer networks, Genachowski called for FCC intervention on a case by case basis.

The agency would be the “smart cop on the beat,” Genachowski said in a speech, outlining a plan to prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or slowing certain technologies and content on their networks. The chairman proposed that firms be required to make public the steps they are taking to control Web traffic. With story from the Washington Post

The ISPs, especially the wireless ones, are crying foul on this move by the FCC. They claim bandwidth is being taxed to the limit by smart phones and the demand for streaming data like HD video.

This is the announcement of the beginning of a process,” said Colin Crowell, a senior adviser to Genachowski. “The chairman said two things with respect to mobile; first, that the principles ought to apply to all platforms, in order to be technologically neutral. The principals ideally apply in a technologically neutral way so that your expectations as a consumer and entrepreneur don’t change as you choose different ways of reaching the Internet. Second, he indicated that how, to what extent, and when the principles will apply to different platforms is what the process will determine.”

“This approach, within the framework I am proposing today, will allow the commission to make reasoned, fact-based determinations based on the Internet before it — not based on the Internet of years past or guesses about how the Internet will evolve,” Genachowski said in his speech, delivered at the Brookings Institution. With story from the Washington Post

Users may applaud this intervention since they are at the mercy of ISPs and wireless providers. There is competition but email accounts, contracts and other devices are used to limit the movement of unhappy consumers to a new service.

However, the industry lobby is powerful and has been able to fend off government intervention in the future.

In the meantime, consumers are spending up to ten times more for information than we were 30 years ago when a phone was $20 a month and cable TV was $15. We are getting more but the cost is relatively high.