/ 05.27.2010 12:00AM
FCC Will Focus on Broadband Classification in June Meeting
WASHINGTON: The Federal Communications Commission today
said its June 17 regular meeting will focus on the legal classification of
broadband. The commission said it will open a Notice of Inquiry “to begin an
open, public process to consider possible legal frameworks for broadband
Internet services.”
The announcement noted that April’s federal court decision put the current
framework in doubt. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that
the FCC could not prohibit Comcast to regulate the bit-rates of its broadband
subscribers. The decision was based in part on how broadband is legally
classified.
“Nearly a decade has passed since the commission gathered the record on which
the current legal classification of broadband Internet service is based,” the
FCC said. “Congress has recently reaffirmed the FCC’s limited-but-vital role
with respect to broadband, and the commission has fulfilled Congress’s mandate
to develop a National Broadband Plan recommending specific agency actions to
encourage deployment and adoption.”
The FCC’s NOI will solicit feedback on whether to maintain broadband’s
classification as an “information service,” or to change it to the more heavily
regulated “telecommunications” category. A third alternative would be to leave
Internet content under the first classification and move connectivity into the
second.
-- Deborah D. McAdams