Posted on 02/21/2015 7:32:35 AM PST by kindred
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to vote on new net neutrality rules during its February meeting.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will bring a proposal to a vote during the commission’s Feb. 26 meeting, FCC spokeswoman Kim Hart said Friday, following a report in the Washington Post.
It’s unclear, however, what form those rules will take. Hart declined to comment further on the net neutrality order Wheeler plans to circulate in February.
Many telecom policy experts had expected the FCC to take action on net neutrality early this year after a year-long fight over the issue.
Nearly a year ago, a U.S. appeals court threw out a large portion of net neutrality rules the FCC approved in late 2010. The court ruled that the FCC’s rules came too close to common carrier regulations when the commission didn’t take the step of reclassifying broadband providers as regulated utilities. The court, however, pointed to a couple if sections of the Telecommunications Act that the FCC could use to pass net neutrality regulations.
After launching a net neutrality proceeding in early 2014, the FCC has received nearly 4 million public comments about proposed regulations. Wheeler originally proposed that the FCC adopt rules that would allow broadband providers to engage in “commercially reasonable” traffic management, and in limited cases, charge Web content providers and services for prioritized traffic.
But many people filing comments, and groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge, called on the FCC to pass stronger rules prohibiting traffic prioritization deals. Many advocates of strong net neutrality rules want the FCC to reclassify broadband as a regulated public utility, while exempting them from some common carrier rules, like price regulation.
Recent news reports have suggested Wheeler is leaning toward so-called hybrid net neutrality rules that would classify a part of broadband service as a regulated public utility.
The hybrid approach would divide broadband into two services for the purpose of regulation. One service would be retail broadband access, which would remain lightly regulated, and the second would be back-end transit service, which the FCC would reclassify as a regulated common carrier, similar to utility-style regulation for traditional telephone service.
In November, however, President Barack Obama called on the FCC to reclassify all broadband service as a regulated utility.
DEFUND THE FCC NOW!!
Freedom Of Speech will take a Big Hit
Meanwhile in the Senate, McCain asks his GF, Linda:
“What is this Internet thing?”
That’s the idea.
Freedom Of Speech will disappear.
Obama's wanted control of the Internet since he took office. I've been on websites encouraging people to call in the past, got busy this time. Not that I would have made the difference but they just wore people like me down until they got an opening, takeover without all the hubbub.
That is exactly what the Marxists want. Cut off communications, isolate us from each other.
If you’re STILL not sure how to feel about the intentionally confusing 332 page FCC monstrosity called Net Neutrality (that the FCC WOULDN’T LET US SEE), all you really need to know is that this is OBAMA’S effort to bring to heel the burgeoning internet alternative – that’s hammering him and his BS into the ground – to Big Brother’s statist propaganda dispensing TELESCREEN. Go online and search “Senators and Representatives who support or oppose net neutrality”. In the support column you will find the usual leftist democrat suspects. There ya’ go!
Let the marketplace make these decisions. IF the big boys like Comcast, Charter and others start playing games with the consumers, THEN it will be time to surgically rein them in with targeted legislation.
That the very leftist Consumer Union supports obozo’s proposal speaks volumes.
Comcast is notoriously difficult to play with from the accounts point of view, although they don’t seem to be censoring content in any meaningful way.
Still a pie in the sky, have to pass it to know it net neutrality is not what anybody should want. At best shooting a fly with a cannonball, at worst a volley of cannonballs at us.
Not so fast says Jason Chaffetz. His oversight committee has given Wheeler til Monday to turn over all emails between them and the Whitehut. Maybe this will derail the net neutrality move.
Why do we have a Congress when most laws are now dictated by bureaucracies.
Regulated = Controlled
We are going to take things away from you for the common good.
Democrat party member Hillary Clinton.
These idiots think they had a tiger by the tail when their fellow citizens finally “got” obamacare and showed what they thought of it at the ballot box, wait until they screw with something that nearly all Americans use - not just the sick ones like with obamacare.
Oh, wait, I forgot - they know much better than we do about what’s good for us.
I strongly suspect they will vote for some form of Net Neutrality; whether they go for total control or opt for the small step approach, whatever the initial product; it will be oppressive.
The communists have taken control; now the battle begins for ultimate control between the communists and the islamic leader in the WH; they each see the other as a useful tool in their efforts, as I see it now at the beginning of the battle, the islamist has the upper hand, the communists have failed to realize the islamist tool has worn out its usefulness and has long since become a liability.
God Help Us...CRUZ 2016! The only one I see with the fortitude to stand in the gap.
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