As it stands today, Internet service providers are classified as information services, which means the FCC cannot regulate them as it would landline phones, which are considered telecommunication utilities and under the FCC’s purview. Reclassifying ISPs as utilities (like common carrier telephone services) would potentially give the FCC far greater control over ISPs.
When you consider this article from March 2014...they are quickly setting things up....
Since 1998, under a contract with the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), DNS has been handled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation created for the purpose.
But when its current contract expires in ‘’’September 2015’’’, it won’t be renewed. In the meantime, an alternative will be worked out.
“The timing is right to start the transition process,” says assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information Lawrence E Strickling. “We look forward to ICANN convening ‘stakeholders across the global internet community’ to craft an appropriate transition plan.”.... (who might they be?)
ICANN will work with organizations including:
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB),
The Internet Society (ISOC),
The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs),
.... top level domain name operators, VeriSign and others to develop new proposals.
The intention is to maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the internet – along with its openness. The Commerce Department says it won’t accept a proposal that simply allows another government or group of governments to take over the role of the NTIA.
The responsibilities to be farmed out will include the administration of changes to the DNS’s authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as managing the unique identifiers registries for domain names, IP addresses, and protocol parameters.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/03/15/us-government-cedes-control-of-the-internet/
But ISPs aren’t utilities, nor public. Somebody owns those servers, those cables, those satellites. The federal gubmint didn’t build them, like whatever the Tennessee Valley Authority got up to. What couldn’t be considered a “utility,” I wonder. All the word means, really, is that it’s useful. Hey, your house is nice; I could find a use for it. Give it to me, in the name of the common good!