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Congressmen Send Letters, Hope For Net Neutrality Fades

Posted by kdawson on from the making-sausage dept.

The odds of the FCC implementing net-neutrality rules just got much longer. "A bipartisan group of politicians on Monday told FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in no uncertain terms, to abandon his plans to impose controversial new rules on broadband providers until the US Congress changes the law. Seventy-four House Democrats sent Genachowski ... a letter saying his ideas will 'jeopardize jobs' and 'should not be done without additional direction from Congress.' A separate letter from 37 Senate Republicans, also sent Monday, was more pointed. It accused Genachowski of pushing 'heavy-handed 19th century regulations' that are 'inconceivable' as well as illegal. ... [U]nless something unexpected happens, the fight over Net neutrality will shift a few blocks down Independence Avenue from the FCC to Capitol Hill. (In an editorial Monday, The Washington Post called for just that.)"

3 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. what jobs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What phantom jobs are they talking about? Broadband infrastructure investment in the US is dead dead dead. Verizon was the last company investing in broadband infrastructure with their FiOS deployments. They've already announced that they're stopping. No more FiOS. No more broadband.

    How can an industry with a current investment level of ZERO be providing jobs? There are no jobs, because there is no investment. Congress is protecting phantom jobs that don't exist!

  2. Business as usual by dcmoebius · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Cue the unending stream of lobbyists, please. They're on next.

    Seriously, how many people ACTUALLY think that this was anything more than Congress muscling the FCC aside to better suckle at the corporate teat?

    Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I don't see Congress getting territorial over any issue that isn't backed by multi-billion dollar industries.

  3. End run by Anonymous+Struct · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I say the FCC should license a nice fat chunk of wireless spectrum for high power ad hoc peer to peer networking. Then people can put up their own antennas and run their own community-wide public access points. Then maybe the government can help out by connecting the major cities with the longer haul infrastructure. I have to wonder how big of a mess it would be to start, but I also kind of wonder if it might self-organize into a new internet. It'd be delightful to see Comcast's reaction to something like that.