FCC Planning Rule Changes To Restore US Net Neutrality

Karl C writes "In a statement issued today, FCC commissioner Tom Wheeler announced that the commission will begin a rule-making process to re-impose Net Neutrality, which was recently struck down in Federal court. Among the standards Wheeler intends to pursue are vigorous enforcement of a requirement for transparency in how ISPs manage traffic, and a prohibition on blocking (the 'no blocking' provision.) This seems like exactly what net neutrality activists have been demanding: Total prohibition of throttling, and vigorous enforcement of that rule, and of a transparency requirements so ISPs can't try to mealy-mouth their way around accusations that they're already throttling Netflix. Even before the court decision overturning net neutrality, Comcast and Verizon users have been noting Netflix slowdowns for months."

Re:Not imposing common carrier status

[Attila Dimedici]

It sounds to me like the ISPs position is that if they are going to be subject to net neutrality, they want the whole ball of wax of being a common carrier. On the other hand, the FCC does not want to call them common carriers. It would be interesting to see why the FCC does not want to call them common carriers, since the judge flat out told them that the only way they can legally regulate "net neutrality" is if they change their classification of ISPs to common carrier.
It looks to me like the FCC's plan here is to keep massaging these rules and re-issuing them until the ISPs decide they cannot afford to keep going back to court over it.

The REAL good news

[DigitalSorceress]

So, when the FCC re-rules ISPs as Common Carriers, the real good news is that means that 6 strikes rules and other copyright stuff is out the window... after all, a big part of common carrier status is taht you are exempt from having any responsibility for controlling the content you're carrying - so you can't be sued by a copyright owner because user susy q used your infrastructure to share/copy movie x.

(Ok, so I bet they still WILL do crap like that because they're so far in bed with copyright owners... HHHMMM COMCAST/NBC? but it would be nice to stop them having their cake and eating it too... one can dream)

I really am happy that the FCC and the Obama administration "get it" - the Internet has become vital to our economy and a free, fair, open Internet is key to innovation and continued growth. If the 'net were allowed to become an expensive toll road, it would only feed the pockets of the already wealthy whilst simultaneously raising the barrier to entry for anything new/innovative.