When a federal court struck down the FCC’s ruling against Comcast in the now-famous BitTorrent case, it may have undone more than the commission’s position in that one narrow case.
Open Internet advocates are warning that the ruling went much farther, and actually crippled the FCC’s authority to enact a host of the recommendations in the national broadband plan it recently delivered to Congress.
What is to be done? That certainly depends who you ask, but for the Open Internet Coalition, a consortium of businesses and advocacy groups, the next step is clear. The group is stepping up its calls for the FCC to reclassify broadband as a Title II service under communications law, giving it firmer regulatory authority over Internet service providers.
Enterprise Networking Planet takes a look at the scenarios for the FCC’s next steps.
A consortium of businesses and interest groups that advocate for net neutrality is stepping up its calls for the Federal Communications Commission to take a more forcible approach toward exercising regulatory authority over the Internet, warning that a recent legal setback imperils many of the goals laid out in the commission’s national broadband plan.
The Open Internet Coalition (OIC), whose members include major Internet companies like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), as well as consumer advocate groups such as Free Press and Public Knowledge, today urged the commission to reclassify high-speed Internet as a telecommunications service under federal communications law, a narrow but significant distinction that would go a long way toward clarifying its authority in the area.
The group’s appeal comes just a week after a federal appeals court struck down the FCC’s 2008 order punishing Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) for secretly degrading peer-to-peer traffic on its network, dealing a blow to net neutrality advocates.
