F.C.C. Proposes New Rules on Internet Access

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WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission proposed an approach to regulating broadband Internet service on Thursday that would reclassify the transmission component as a basic utility subject to the agency’s oversight in order to enforce consumer protections and equal access.

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The approach would specifically forbid the commission from regulating rates charged by telephone and cable companies for Internet service and would not allow the commission to regulate Internet content, services, applications or electronic commerce sites.

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The new approach, which the F.C.C. called a “third way,” would rely on a legal theory that recognizes the computing function and the broadband transmission component of retail Internet access service as separate things subject to different regulation.

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The approach ... relies in part on a dissenting opinion in [a] case, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, which said that the “computing functionality” and the broadband transmission component of Internet access service are two different tings, each subject to differing levels of regulation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/technology/07broadband.html?src=busln

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More reading: http://www.broadband.gov/the-third-way-narrowly-tailored-broadband-framework-chairman-julius-genachowski.html

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