The FCC unveiled a wide-ranging set of proposed rules around net neutrality – rules that are sure to be the topic of heated debate over the next several months.
Specifically under six proposed rules, a wireless and wireline provider of broadband Internet access service:
1. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet;
2. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice;
3. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user’s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;
4. would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers and content providers;
5. would be required to treat lawful content, applications and services in a nondiscriminatory manner; and
6. would be required to disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in the rulemaking.
In presenting the proposed rules, FCC staff said the notice recognizes unique technical characteristics of mobile networks, such as wide variations in signal levels across service areas and interference from other devices, and seeks comment on the implications of those characteristics in evaluating the reasonableness of network management practices.
The FCC also announced it will be developing a Technical Advisory Process, so that the engineering questions are addressed with “sound engineering principles” and not on politics. Julie Knapp, chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, is in charge of that effort. Knapp said today that more information on that effort will be forthcoming.