'Round and round and round we go, where we'll stop, nobody knows...
The Senate Commerce Committee yesterday (6/24/10) questioned three FCC commissioners about FCC Chairman Genachowski's oft- and passionately stated intent to assert more control over the way broadband providers manage Internet traffic by extending existing telephony authority to regulate Internet access as well. Genachowski was not present at the hearing. Not surprisingly, Committee Democrats voiced support for the FCC's actions as essential to driving ubiquitous broadband, while Republican counterparts challenged the plans, expressing concern that such regulation would stifle innovation.
The FCC proposals, which would include an overhaul of the $8 billion Universal Service Fund - which currently subsidizes phone service for low-income folk and rural areas - to instead allow for funding new Internet access in rural areas. The bigger question though, is, of course, whether the FCC has or can contrive to extend any authority over Internet traffic or services in general. Indeed, as previously blogged, Genachowski's proposals fly in the face of the April Federal Court ruling that concluded that the FCC overreached when it sanctioned Comcast for deliberately slowing some of its subscribers Internet traffic.
I applaud Genachowski's initiative in the context of it shining a brighter and brighter light on both the need for accelerated broadband deployment and the imperative to curb access provider abuse of market power. As said before, the debate itself is serving as regulatory oversight of a sort. I worry though, just a bit,that it may also serve to delay the very deployments that are critical to our broadband future...
Stay tuned.
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