Thursday, October 29, 2009
Predictably, FCC Action on Comcast Spurs No End of Whining
The Federal Communications Commission likes to describe the enforcement action it took against Comcast for its overzealous network management techniques as “modest.” Which is an apt description, since the FCC measure really contained no substantive punishment. Certainly, requiring Comcast to disclose more information about its traffic management practices seems a mere slap on the wrist for a company that deliberately interfered with BitTorrent traffic in violation of Internet openness principles. But Comcast, which wants a court to reverse and vacate the FCC decision, feels that even it was too much.
They don’t call Sen. John McCain a maverick for nothing. Just hours after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski officially unveiled Net neutrality rules, the Arizona Republican introduced a bill that would prohibit the Commission from enacting them. 
In the rhetorical battle over net neutrality, Google may have regulatory capitalism with which to bludgeon and batter AT&T, but AT&T has Benedictine nuns, an entire convent of them. In a 13-page letter to the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday, the carrier took issue with Google’s claim that its Google Voice service only blocks calls to adult sex chat lines, asserting that it also blocks calls to small businesses and Benedictine nuns.
Should Google be able to offer voice services unfettered by regulations that apply to broadband carriers simply because Google Voice is a free Internet application? AT&T certainly doesn’t think so, and it seems at least a few Congressional representatives agree.
Google is violating the Net neutrality principles it so strongly advocates–according to AT&T, anyway. In a letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau Friday, the telephone company described Google as “one of the most noisome trumpeters of so-called net-neutrality” and asked the FCC to order it to “play by the same rules as its competitors.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski this morning proposed broad new rules prohibiting Internet providers–both wireless and wireline–from selectively blocking or slowing Internet traffic. “It is vital that we safeguard the free and open Internet,” Genachowski said during at event at the Brookings Institute. After the jump, Genachowski’s speech in full.
Ironic, isn’t it, that Google, one of Net neutrality’s staunchest advocates, has been approaching major cable and phone companies with a proposal that appears to violate the very tenets of that principle? How could a company that has argued tirelessly that all Internet traffic should be treated equally, suddenly reverse course and seek preferential treatment for its own traffic?
As predictable as day following night, litigation has followed the Federal Communications Commission’s sanctions against Comcast. In a long-expected action, Comcast sued the commission today claiming the FCC had no legal grounds on which to punish it for throttling file-sharing traffic on its network. 
A tough act to follow, last year’s D: All Things Digital 5. How do you best, or even match, a 75-minute joint interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs–a history-making history lesson taught by two principal protagonists of tech’s narrative? Summon Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse from the dead to reminisce about the “War of Currents”?
