Senator: New net neutrality plan worse than "doing nothing at all"

[DaBees-Knees]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/new-net-neutrality-plan-worse-than-doing-nothing-at-all.ars

We're five days and counting from the Federal Communications Commission issuing new net neutrality rules. Nobody beyond insiders at the agency has seen the draft Order in question. But Senator Al Franken (D-MN) has a message for the Commission. If the Order exempts wireless broadband from any nondiscrimination provisions, it might be better to put the whole matter off.

"I am very worried that the draft Order does not do enough to preserve that openness," he wrote to FCC Chair Julius Genachowski. In fact, as presently written, it could do "more harm than doing nothing at all."

Entirely acceptable

Most media reports suggest that the rules the FCC is expected to release on December 21 do exempt mobile wireless from nondiscrimination provisions. Genachowski has acknowledged that as well. They'll also permit paid prioritization, according to The Washington Post.

What will that mean, Franken wonders, for the Verizon networked iPad? Will the company favor its own video service apps over Netflix?

Under the language of the draft Order as I understand it, it would be entirely acceptable for a mobile ISP to prioritize its own such such applications and either degrade competing applications, or, quite simply, block them outright. To use a hypothetical, under this framework, Verizon could initially allow iPad owners access to a streaming Netflix video application over their 3G or LTE network—but then block that same Netflix application the very day that V CAST, Verizon's mobile video on-demand service, becomes available and offers competing content. In fact, they could have blocked the Netflix application the day they thought of offering V CAST on iPad.

Beyond concerns about exempting wireless broadband and permitting paid priotization, Franken worries about reports that the Order will define broadband Internet access as a "consumer retail service, by wire or radio, that provides high-speed capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all Internet endpoints." This approach would be similar to the net neutrality draft that Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) unsuccessfully tried to get through the House earlier this year.

The definition is "flawed," Franken insists. The "consumer retail service" provision could be spun to exclude business or enterprise broadband. The all-or-substantially-all language could "perversely, allow broadband Internet access service providers who block websites to remove themselves from coverage under the rule."

If politicians can possibly make a mess of something they do.