FCC Commissioners Copps, Clyburn Strongly Support Open Internet
By: David Dayen Friday August 20, 2010
FireDogLake
Two FCC Commissioners and one US Senator slammed the Google-Verizon joint policy agreement and strongly endorsed the principle of net neutrality last night at a hearing before hundreds of citizens in Minneapolis, giving the Chairman of the federal agency Julius Genachowski all of the support he would need to regulate broadband Internet, if he so chose.
Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn both endorsed the reclassification of broadband as a communications service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Copps said simply, “It’s calling an apple an apple.” If Genachowski agreed, he would thus have enough votes to pass the change in policy. Genachowski and the FCC released a plan in May to reclassify, but has yet to move on it, taking meetings with industry stakeholders and generally foot-dragging in an effort to reach consensus.
In the interim, Internet giant Google and telecom giant Verizon announced a joint policy agreement that made a distinction between wireline and wireless Internet, and also allowed for undefined “managed services” to discriminate between online content. Both Copps and Clyburn sharply criticized the statement. The deal “would eliminate any openness provisions over wireless, which is where all Internet applications are going,” said Copps, the longtime Commissioner. Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, agreed. “Any proposal that treats wire-line and wireless Internet differently would be impossible for me to support,” she said, citing the increasing tendency for minority Web users to access the Internet on phones or wireless devices.
Sen. Al Franken, who has led on the issue of net neutrality recently, concurred. Speaking of the Google-Verizon deal, he said, “We can’t let companies write the rules that we the people are supposed to follow. Because if that happens those rules will be written only to protect corporations.” As Copps put it, “Dealmaking between big Internet players is not policymaking for the common good.”
(More here.)
FireDogLake
Two FCC Commissioners and one US Senator slammed the Google-Verizon joint policy agreement and strongly endorsed the principle of net neutrality last night at a hearing before hundreds of citizens in Minneapolis, giving the Chairman of the federal agency Julius Genachowski all of the support he would need to regulate broadband Internet, if he so chose.
Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn both endorsed the reclassification of broadband as a communications service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. Copps said simply, “It’s calling an apple an apple.” If Genachowski agreed, he would thus have enough votes to pass the change in policy. Genachowski and the FCC released a plan in May to reclassify, but has yet to move on it, taking meetings with industry stakeholders and generally foot-dragging in an effort to reach consensus.
In the interim, Internet giant Google and telecom giant Verizon announced a joint policy agreement that made a distinction between wireline and wireless Internet, and also allowed for undefined “managed services” to discriminate between online content. Both Copps and Clyburn sharply criticized the statement. The deal “would eliminate any openness provisions over wireless, which is where all Internet applications are going,” said Copps, the longtime Commissioner. Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, agreed. “Any proposal that treats wire-line and wireless Internet differently would be impossible for me to support,” she said, citing the increasing tendency for minority Web users to access the Internet on phones or wireless devices.
Sen. Al Franken, who has led on the issue of net neutrality recently, concurred. Speaking of the Google-Verizon deal, he said, “We can’t let companies write the rules that we the people are supposed to follow. Because if that happens those rules will be written only to protect corporations.” As Copps put it, “Dealmaking between big Internet players is not policymaking for the common good.”
(More here.)
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