FCC Meets with Industry on Proposed Broadband Reclassification

Meetings
between the FCC and industry continue on a possible legislative response to the
court decision in Comcast/BitTorrent that called the FCC's broadband regulatory
authority into question, at least as the FCC had defended it.

The
latest to be chronicled in the FCC's docket on possible Title II
reclassification of broadband was between FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus and
representatives of Google, Skype and the Open Internet Coalition.

That
is according to an ex parte filing at the commission.

Among
the topics of conversation were legislative language on a nondiscrimination
principle, prohibitions on blocking content and devices, and whether those
should be applicable to wireless as well as wired broadband.

The
FCC has been meeting with various stakeholders to see if they can come to
agreement on proposed legislative language that would clarify the FCC's
authority to regulate unreasonable network management and broadband access.

Separately,
the FCC has proposed its own regulatory solution, Chairman Julius Genachowski's
so-called "third way" that would apply a handful of common carrier
regs to broadband transmissions.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.