New U.S. Push to Regulate Internet Access
By AMY SCHATZ
WASHINGTON—In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.
The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.
Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt "net neutrality" rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites...
At stake is how far the FCC can go to dictate the way Internet providers manage traffic on their multibillion-dollar networks. For the past decade or so, the FCC has maintained a mostly hands-off approach to Internet regulation.
Internet giants like Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc., which want to offer more Web video and other high-bandwidth services, have called for stronger action by the FCC to assure free access to websites.
Cable and telecommunications executives have warned that using land-line phone rules to govern their management of Internet traffic would lead them to cut billions of capital expenditure for their networks, slash jobs and go to court to fight the rules.
Consumer groups hailed the decision Wednesday, an abrupt change from recent days, when they'd bombarded the FCC chairman with emails and phone calls imploring him to fight phone and cable companies lobbyists.
Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton and co-chair of the Arts + Labs Coalition:
"The question is how heavy a hand will the regulatory touch be," he said. "We don't know yet, so the devil is in the details. The network operators have to be able to treat some traffic on the Internet different than other traffic—most people agree that web video is different than an email to grandma. You have to discriminate in some fashion."
Wall Street Journal: http://bit.ly/aU3YkS
2 comments:
Personally, I think that regulate the internet access is not a good thing. Nowadays, we're all living in a open-minded generation. Therefore, if the “internet neutrality” can be regulated and controlled by a government, the Internet is no longer being "neutral". It is not a place where all of us can express our idea freely. Since some of the major internet businesses are on board, this legislation must be better for the free market. We do not need the government to regulate and determine “neutrality” any more than we need it opening the doors to increased censorship and control over websites.
In my experience, in most of the Southeast Asia, the Internet regulation is strictly control by the government. Especially in China and even in my country, Vietnam, most of the videos was censored by the Internet gatekeepers which belongs to the government. People complain about this a lot; however, it can't be changed.
This upper comment is mine, though :) I just mistook my class blog with my personal blog, sorry for the confusing.
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