E-TIPS® previously reported that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Court) had struck down net neutrality provisions of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Open Internet Order. The FCC’s Chairman, Tom Wheeler, has announced that the FCC will vote on new proposed draft rules on May 15 that should follow the roadmap set out by the Court in its January decision. The draft rules will then be available for public comment. The announcement indicates that the FCC has ruled out reclassifying internet service providers (ISPs) as “common carriers”, which would allow the FCC to regulate the ISPs in the same manner as telephone services. In effect, the reclassification would allow the FCC to reinstate the rules that were struck down. In a blog post about its draft Open Internet Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC has stated that the draft will propose rules requiring transparent disclosure by the ISPs of “all relevant information as to the policies that govern their network”, no blocking of legal content, and no acts by ISPs “commercially unreasonable manner to harm the Internet, including favoring the traffic from an affiliated entity.” In response to criticisms that the term “commercially unreasonable” was vague and the rules unlikely to ensure net neutrality, Chairman Wheeler, in a further blog post, gave assurances that if these rules were not sufficient, the FCC would consider reclassifying ISPs as common carriers. However, to the disappointment of some, Chairman Wheeler also stated that he does not consider the rules applicable to “peering” agreements, such as ones recently entered into by Netflix with certain ISPs, which allow websites and content providers to pay ISPs for better delivery. For Canada-versus-US comparisons on this issue, visit: http://bit.ly/PKWqby and http://bit.ly/1o2SZfk; and for a review of telecommunications regulation in the US, see: http://bit.ly/1rZ97My Summary by: Cheryl Cheung

E-TIPS® ISSUE

14 05 07

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