FCC Changing the Broadband Rules

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has announced that the agency will work to reclassify broadband Internet as a telecommunication service, like the telephone, effectively allowing the agency to oversee Internet transmission.

The idea is to ensure that Internet service providers do not discriminate in delivering services. The FCC will not regulate rates or content. —JCL

The New York Times:

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission outlined a plan on Thursday that would allow the agency to control the transmission component of high-speed Internet, but not rates or content.

In announcing the F.C.C. decision, Julius Genachowski, the commission’s chairman, said the agency would begin a process to reclassify broadband transmission service as a telecommunications service, subjecting the Internet to some of the same oversight as telephone services.

But, he said, the commission would also exempt broadband service from many of the rules affecting telephone service, seeking mainly to guarantee that Internet service providers could not discriminate against certain applications, Internet sites or users.

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Flickr / fccdotgov

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a meeting in Washington.