On Wednesday, the US Federal Communications Commission made known their intention to introduce a new set of rules regarding net neutrality, of which part of the focus will be the prevention of overcharges by Internet service providers to companies like Google Inc or Netflix Inc for the latter to reach their customers at the highest speeds possible. The Wall Street Journal said in a report that the new guidelines will be banning broadband providers from favoring access to websites.
Supporters of the net neutrality had claimed that the Internet concept was a key step to ensure that the Web remained open and to provide a bias-free market for small-time competitors who wish to penetrate the market, the newspaper said. However, the last two attempts of the FCC to enforce the Web concept on companies, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc, had been thwarted by courts. WSJ said both Comcast and Verizon currently dominate the market in providing Internet-based services like Web connections to households and businesses.
To recall, the newspaper said US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had thrown out FCC rules that would effectively bar broadband providers from blocking of slowing access to websites last month. Nonetheless, the Appeals court acknowledged that the Commission was partly responsible to regulate corporate practices in the broadband services industry. It could be deduced that FCC has changed its legal tactic by introducing new rules under its recognized legal authority as underlined by last month's Appeals court ruling.
FCC had said that it will be completing its new rules in early summer or late spring at most.
WSJ said the latest announcement of the regulator meant that FCC had not heed to calls from public interest groups and Democrats to reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility, wherein if it would then the service will be subject to greater regulation. On the other side of the argument, FCC could have decided to heed Republicans and broadband providers' reasoning that the reclassification move will seriously hamper innovation and investment in the broadband industry, the newspaper added.
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