The FCC is working on a new set...
The FCC is working on a new set of principles to help guide companies as the agency prepares to regulate net neutrality disputes on a case-by-case basis, Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed in a Q-and-A session with reporters after Thursday’s commission…
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meeting (see related stories in this issue). The FCC will “preserve and protect the open Internet,” Wheeler said. In a “relatively short time,” the agency will be “stepping out to put some more flesh around those basic principles,” he said. In response to a question about how the FCC would address due process concerns by providing potential guidance to ISPs, he said: “We will have some specifics coming out on this shortly” that will address those issues. Wheeler said again (CD Jan 29 p1) that he planned to accept the “invitation” offered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to regulate Internet disputes. He declined to elaborate on whether the commission would rely on Section 706 of the Communications Act, or proceed with Title II reclassification that would let it impose common carrier obligations. The agency will use “all of the tools in the toolbox,” and will “be forthcoming with our plan and rationale therefore shortly,” Wheeler said. The plan would be “addressing the construct for how we go forward, and that will use all of the vehicles at the agency,” Wheeler said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at a Minority Media and Telecom Council event earlier this month (CD Jan 17 p5) that she would support Wheeler as he lays out the next steps on a “high-level” set of principles to provide guidance to companies and consumers. Free Press Thursday delivered to the FCC a petition with more than 1 million signatures urging the agency to restore net neutrality (http://bit.ly/1eAD52r). “To preserve the open Internet, the FCC must reclassify the transmission component of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service,” the petition said. “One of the reasons that Internet has to stay open is that it enables people to organize and express themselves to the government” and “therefore enables the government to do a better job,” Wheeler said in response to a question about that petition. “If there are a million people, that’s boffo! We want to hear from those million people.”