FCC Looks for Balance in Net Neutrality Debate

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said this week, during a debate on net neutrality hosted by VON TV, that the time has come at the FCC for a specific and enforceable principal on non-discrimination regarding network management and he re-affirmed the commission’s position on establishing case-by-case adjudication in the matter of net neutrality.

He said this principal should allow for reasonable network management, but make crystal clear that network operators cannot twist reasonable network management into a not-so-reasonable mechanism for blatant network discrimination.

“That would only shackle the promise of the Internet, and to do that would invite the opprobrium of both present and future Internet users,” Copps said.

Once a non-discrimination principal was established, the next, much harder, task would be to determine when and where to draw the line between discrimination and reasonable network management. “For that, I think the commission would be well advised to establish a systematic expeditious case-by-case approach for adjudicated claims of discrimination. That way, over time we would develop a body of case law that would provide clear rules of the road for those who operate on the edge of the network — namely consumers and entrepreneurs — and those who operate the networks,” Copps said.

He acknowledged that the boundaries between reasonable network management and discrimination will shift over time and that a clearly articulated and well-understood principle, with enforcement, married to a case-by-case approach has the best chance at keeping up with technology and preserving the freedom of the Internet.

“If we can actually strike the right balance here, I believe the wonders of the Internet we have seen in the last decade will not begin to hold a candle to the future benefits it will bring us — and by us I mean every citizen in the land.”

Sparking the discussion about discrimination are the allegations against Comcast that rose in October when the Associated Press reported that Comcast subscribers were able to show that their data, being shared through a file-sharing application called BitTorrent was being blocked.

Chairman Kevin Martin said this week he was unsatisfied with Comcast’s denial of traffic blocking.

During the VON TV debate, Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, took Comcast to task and said Comcast and other broadband companies have an incentive to block certain traffic not in order to solve congestion issues but because they compete with their TV service, video on demand and other services.