The FCC has decided to tackle a contentious issue that has been languishing in Congress for several years – net neutrality. Following a well-publicized and still-unresolved dispute with Comcast over its peer-to-peer transmission policies, the FCC, under Chairman Julius Genachowski, on October 22nd unanimously decided to undertake a new rulemaking to formalize net neutrality principles that the Chairman announced last month. In September, Chairman Genachowski proposed that the agency codify its 2005 Internet policy statement, which included four principles: (1) consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; (2) consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement; (3) consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and (4) consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers. He also added two additional principles explicitly mandating transparency and nondiscrimination.
While the decision to move forward with the Rulemaking was unanimous, the two Republican members of the Commission expressed their disagreement with the substance of the rules. Initial comments will be due January 14th and reply comments by March 5th, 2010.
