A month or so ago I posted a blog entry asking the question if Net Neutrality was dead in light of the ruling by the Circuit Court (FCC v. Comcast). At the time, it looked like a pretty serious blow for the NN advocates, and appeared that the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to support their position on ancillary jurisdiction was also on wobbly legs. Just yesterday in a Wall Street Journal article the FCC announced that they are planning to push forward with plans to regulate broadband access under Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, or a potential hybrid approach (while not clearly stated, that is what is assumed).

Depending on which side of the fence you’re on with respect to this issue, it could be good news or bad news. I think we all want an open and “unbiased” internet – giving us free (not in monetary terms – nothing is free…) and equal access to all web content. The opponents of NN say that the internet is not broken today and the FCC’s attempt to regulate it will impose unnecessary rules and regulations which will stifle competition, in turn stifling innovation. So what does this really mean to us as consumers?

As Internet and technology companies, we strongly support the deployment of better and faster broadband transmission services as quickly as possible. Broadband serves as the critical “on-ramp” for consumers to access the full richness of the Internet. We applaud the effort by the Federal Communications Commission to develop a plan to bring broadband to all Americans. source: The Open Internet Coalition

There are lots of arguments back and forth on this issue. I think the more important underlying question is why does the US rank so far behind other countries in terms of broadband access? After all, the US has a National Broadband Plan. So why aren’t we farther along in it’s implementation? Trying to answer this question could take several blog entries, and still wouldn’t come to a conclusion. Let’s just say that the combination of US economic conditions and practices, the economy itself, federal versus local laws, broadband spectrum control and allocation, and the competition between information services providers (and the blurred lines between them and telecommunications providers) makes it slow, if not questionable if we will ever achieve the goal of broadband access for all. But I digress from the issue at hand…

Talking the “Third Way” talk is not the same as walking the walk, however. Whatever the details of a “Third Way,” it cannot be created by the FCC. Putting the Internet in a regulatory straightjacket of Title II and then not enforcing much of it is not the path to a “Third Way.” Only Congress can create a new chapter in the library of communications law. The best the FCC can do to facilitate the exercise is propose a framework. source: Information Technology and Innovation Forum

There are good parts of the Net Neutrality debate, and the result of the debate will be that we will eventually have better broadband access and hopefully legislation that ensures equal access to all web content and services. I think what is at the heart of the debate is how to get there. More and more people seem to be agreeing on one point – new legislation is required to give the FCC the power it wants and trying to force-fit it under the existing 1996 Telecommunications Act framework (specifically moving information services from Title I to Title II) is not the best solution (I agree with Gigi Sohn on this point – maybe we need a “Title VII” instead). Pretty much everybody agrees that if the FCC moves forward with its plan (whether or not it has the legal authority to do so – another debate) what we will see for the next “x” years is huge amounts of legal wrangling and litigation – and in the background the internet will continue “business as usual”. So how is this moving us toward the National Broadband Plan goal? I’m not seeing it…

The attached video from TechCrunch is pretty interesting. It brings several views to the debate/argument, which I think are all pretty good. There is no easy solution to this problem given the characteristics/constraints I mentioned above. But maybe Larry Downes is right – given the social media tools we have today, maybe the voice of the consumer will be the ultimate driving force that makes the most appropriate change occur. What’s your opinion?