Fury as FCC applies net neutrality to mobile

FCC (Federal Communications Commission) chairman Julius Genachowski has just outlined his much-awaited plan for Internet neutrality. If the plan is approved it would drag the wireless operators in the US into the public regulatory arena occupied by their wired cousins who have recently had to account for their neutrality policies (or apparent lack of them) to the FCC.

The proposed policy outlined today by Genachowski will mean the FCC will get to poke and pry into mobile operators' business policies and rule on how well they conform to FCC guidelines on neutrality in the same way that wiredtelcos must. The FCC will also impose new and tighter neutrality behaviour on the big phone companies including Verizon and AT&T.

In detail: Genachowski has reaffirmed the long-standing (since 2005) broadband principles that will now be formalised by the FCC.

• That consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.
• That they are also entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
• That they are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
• And that they are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Genachowski has added two extra principles. Internet access providers can't discriminate against particular Internet content or applications: and they must ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practises they implement.

"The rule-making process will enable the commission to analyse fully the implications of the principles for mobile network architectures and practises, and how, as a practical matter, they can be fairly and appropriately implemented," Genachowski said today.

"I will propose that the FCC evaluate alleged violations of the non-discrimination principle as they arise, on a case-by-case basis, recognising that the Internet is an extraordinarily complex and dynamic system," he continued.

The general policy formed the centre-piece of the Obama IT strategy in the presidential election and has the backing of 'Internet advocates' in the US who have become identified (along with the policy of neutrality) as liberals in the left/right sweep of the US political landscape. Despite vigorous lobbying by the big telcos in the interval between the elections and now, the policy seems (so far) to have remained solid.

At the centre is the FCC's principle which says that Internet providers must not restrict or access to legal Internet sites and services. In addition, Genachowski is proposing a new agency which would clarify its current principles and turn them into formal rules. He has also taken account of the "reasonable network management" line the big US telcos have also been using in Europe (with the European Commission and Parliament). The agency will become the political lightening rod for the definition of "reasonable."

Predictably the announcement has not been greeted with cheers from the likes of the CTIA, which is sticking to the line that competition is enough to regulate everything and that carriers should be able to manage their own networks. Mobile carriers also say that opening their networks to data-heavy applications like streaming video could push them beyond their limited capacity. The way would still be open, of course, for carriers to introduce caps and charges for heavy data usage, although mobile carriers are probably reluctant to enter what could fast become a vicious price war over data service pricing.

In the US the Internet Neutrality issue sees to have polarised into a left/right, liberal/conservative bun-fight. US right-wingers categorise the issue as another instance of government interference in the free market, alongside healthcare (the big one at the moment).

This is actually very odd. Net neutrality sets down a framework to protect and foster an open market online and to stimulate even greater levels of competition amongst service providers. It effectively puts the Internet on free market steroids since it makes sure barriers to entry for new providers are kept low and market discovery is kept high. This is right-wing juju so why the anti-neutrality dolts don't cotton on that it is actually as American as apple pie remains a mystery.