Internet providers shouldn’t be allowed to cut deals with online services like Netflix or YouTube to move their content faster, and should be regulated more like phone companies, President Barack Obama says in an announcement made this morning that is being swiftly rejected by the industry.
The Associated Press reports the Federal Communications Commission is nearing a decision on how far to go to protect Internet consumers from backroom deals between broadband providers like Verizon and AT&T and content companies like Netflix. Obama’s statement puts significant political pressure on FCC commissioners and aligns the White House with Internet activists who warn against the creation of so-called Internet “fast lanes.”
“For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business,” Obama says in his statement. “That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information—whether a phone call, or a packet of data.”
Industry quickly pushed back. CTIA-The Wireless Association called Obama’s proposal a “gross overreaction” that would ignore other viewpoints. Read the full story.
