Is the Federal Communications Commission building a case for government-subsidized news? It’s not hard to imagine that will be the outcome of the Commission’s “Future of Media” inquiry. The digital age has produced a “democratic shortfall,” according to one source cited in the inquiry’s public notice. Another scholar working on the project for the FCC has said that today’s media abundance calls for “public media entities” that will serve “as both a filter to reduce information overload and a megaphone to give voice to the unheard.” In other words, a …
In a huge win for the free market and limited government, a federal appeals court today put a halt to the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to exert its authority over the Internet and its power play to regulate the companies who provide access to it. The decision, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, centers around the FCC’s efforts to enact “net neutrality,” a policy that would prevent ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from managing the flow of traffic on the Internet by …
Declaring access to the Internet to be like “running water or the light bulb,” FCC chairman Julius Genachowski declared today that it should be regulated. Specifically, he announced that the Commission will be voting next month on a proposal to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulation on Internet service providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Specifically, the plan is to codify four Bush-era “principles” for Internet firms, while adding two more. The first four principles state that consumers are “entitled” to run applications, connect to devices, and access content of …
One of the key litmus test issues for the online left is support for ‘net neutrality’. Never heard of it? You’re not alone. As a story in the Wall Street Journal exposed today, net neutrality’s biggest supporters can’t even agree on what the term means. In their story Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web, the Journal reports that long time net neutrality supporter Google, Inc. “has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own …
According to the Financial Times, the leading think-tank Copenhagen Economics will release a study next week showing that “broadband prices could rise by up to one-third if regulators in Europe insist on strict ‘net neutrality’ rules.” The reports warns that letting politicians dictate how internet service providers manage their traffic flows will “pass on the cost of scarcity to all consumers” and significantly increase broadband prices thus depressing broadband demand. Also form FT: A separate report, due out in the next few days from the Centre for European Policy Studies, …
Since the Federal Communications Commission’s ‘net neutrality’ order last month there have been an avalanche of lawsuits including four last week alone.Responding to the suits, Ben Scott of Free Press, the energizer rabbit of pro-regulation media groups, said: The Internet is too important to let Comcast tie it up in legal limbo. Congress should act now to pass Net Neutrality laws that clear up any uncertainty once and for all. Huh? On what planet, exactly, is Free Press based? Put aside for the moment the question of whether Comcast is …
Early this month, in a precedent setting decision, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3 -2 to uphold a complaint against Comcast for managing its customers internet traffic needs by slowing the internet service of some customers who heavily use peer-to-peer file sharing software. The action was the first time the government had stepped in and told engineers how best to run the internet. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell spoke to conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, reiterating many of the points he made in the earlier Washington Post op-ed, including: …
The 1996 Telecommunications Act is 137 pages long. The first six titles of the act, and over 134 pages, deal exclusively with regulation of the broadcast, telephone, cable, and satellite television industries. In contrast, wireless and broadband technologies are not covered till Title VII’s “Miscellaneous Provisions”of the bill and cover only three pages. Is it really just a coincidence that, since 1996, investment and growth in wireless and broadband have exploded while the viewership of both broadcast and cable television have fallen, along with use of the telephone? During that …
In their Business section front page puff piece on Free Press policy director Ben Scott, the Washington Post does reports that FP’s “critics” often note that FP “is not as boot-strapped as it may appear, with donors such as billionaire George Soros and singer Barbra Streisand.” WaPo then goes on to breathlessly report that: Free Press has more than $5 million in funding, in part from major foundations such as the Soros Open Society Institute. Its annual lobbying budget is $250,000, compared with the $13.8 million spent by Verizon Communications, …
The House Judiciary committee’s Antitrust Task Force will be holding a hearing this afternoon on net neutrality regulation of the Internet, focusing on recent actions by Comcast to delay uploads of data by so-called “peer-to-peer” networks to avoid traffic congestion. Such networks are used by about 5 percent of Internet users, but consume as much as 70 percent of broadband capacity. The Christian Coalition, oddly, will be there arguing in favor of banning steps to control such “bandwidth hogs.” It is almost alone among conservative groups in endorsing regulation (with …
