The heavy handed FCC

Yesterday the FCC voted 3 to 2 to regulate the internet as a telecom, rather than the previous class of “lightly regulated”. This was reported in the NY Times

The article said

The commission has said it intends to exempt broadband service from most of the regulatory options it has under the stricter designation, keeping only those regulations that are necessary “to implement fundamental universal service, competition and market entry, and consumer protection policies.”

It would not regulate Internet content.

Opponents of the reclassification say that it would give the F.C.C. the power to regulate rates charged to consumers by broadband service providers, something that Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the commission, has said that it does not intend to do.

One of the dissenting voices, Meredith Attwell Baker, said this “will place the heavy thumb of government on the scale of a free market to the point where innovation and investment in the ‘core’ of the Net are subjected to the whims of ‘Mother-May-I’ regulators.”

Future commission members, she said, could overturn current decisions to regulate broadband service only lightly.

Since they specifically say they will not regulate Internet content, that is probably one of the most important goals of the decision. A tax on the service fees charged by providers will probably be coming soon as well.

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Posted by bradfoot

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