Court Ruling Claims FCC ‘Exceeded Mandate’
Net Neutrality may have taken a heavy hit on Tuesday when a Federal appeals court overturned an FCC ruling that would have forced Comcast Corp., to give equal treatment to all traffic flowing through their network. The U.S. court of appeals for the D.C. circuit ruled unanimously in favor of Comcast Corp. saying, the “FCC exceeded its mandate” when it tried to force Comcast Corp. to stop interfering with customers access to some lawful internet service’s. Comcast Corp. claims it no longer targets specific services or sites when coping with heavy internet traffic.
The ruling rejected the FCC’s argument that it derived “ancillary” authority to regulate Comcast’s network management from its congressional mandate which requires the FCC to “make available … a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges”.
This ruling will have an ever growing impact on the ability of the FCC to move forward with the net neutrality proposals outlined by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski last September. Because of this ruling if, at any time in the future, your internet provider delivers anything less than the full scope of the Internet services it advertises, there is nothing the FCC can do to solve the problem except to strenuously object.
The primary argument against FCC regulations is “the market will settle this” which naively assumes that the largest ISP’s will put customers ahead of profits. The assertion of “the market will settle this” also assumes an environment in which healthy competition is fostered among the top providers of any service. This requires companies to adhere to a nice set a playing rules so everyone can get along. The top ISP’s have , on more than one occasion, given reason for doubt on this issue.
According to FCC research, 78% of American households have access to only 2 land-based broadband providers, 13% have only one option and a staggering 4% have access to 3 broadband providers… hardly a healthy competition among the nations top ISP’s.
This is a subject that will see more and more discussion. This latest court ruling is only one ruling in a mass of rulings that will continue to effect net neutrality now and in the future, as they say, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’.
Related posts:
- Comcast Has Victory Over FCC Subscriber Cap
- Net Neutrality Hindered by Myths
- The Nations Top ISP’s Against Net Neutrality…
