The FCC should be able to craft net...
The FCC should be able to craft net neutrality rules using only a sliver of Title II and apply them to wireless, House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., argued this week. “Title II has 47 statutes in it,”…
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Eshoo said during an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators set to be shown Saturday. “You don’t have to take 47 statutes to throw it at this to cure it.” She said she would look to Section 202 of Title II, which speaks to discrimination and blocking. “I think it’s not all of Title II, but I think you can find the gold in that particular section,” Eshoo said, favoring a “light touch.” She cautioned against “the rhetoric” prevailing about the heavy-handed aspects of Title II but also said it’s “uninformed” to assume full Title II reclassification is required. She also issued a news release Thursday announcing results of her reddit contest to rebrand net neutrality, pointing to three popular results -- Freedom Against Internet Restrictions, Freedom to Connect (F2C) and The Old McDonald Act: Equal Internet for Everyone Involved Online (EIEIO). The contest generated 28,000 votes for 3,671 different entries and also “approximately 5,000 votes from Reddit users in favor of what they believe is the best policy approach to achieve net neutrality,” the news release said (http://1.usa.gov/1tCYiBC). “All 5,000 votes favored a reclassification of broadband providers as common carriers, specifically under Title II of the Communications Act.” During The Communicators episode, Eshoo also reiterated her desire that the Communications Subcommittee hold a hearing on some of the proposed acquisitions being considered this year and said there’s still time for such a hearing. She has requested as much from Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., she said. Eshoo called the NAB lawsuit on the TV broadcast spectrum incentive auction a “bump in the road” and said she doesn’t expect it to delay the auction, which seems “on track” for 2015 at the FCC: “I think it’s unfortunate the broadcasters have done that.”