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June 21, 2010

The CTIA, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless all issued strong statements opposing the FCC's proposed plans to accelerate its net neutrality proposals with a Notice of Inquiry (NOI), and at least two other major wireless carriers are expected to follow suit sometime this week.

Passed late Friday on a vote of 3-2, the Notice of Inquiry opens up FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposed "Third Way" approach to net neutrality rules and is an important step toward issuing formal regulations.

The federal agency sees the reclassification as a way to circumvent a U.S. Court of Appeals decision in the FCC vs. Comcast case which ruled last year that the agency lacked authority to regulate information services under Title I of the Communications Act, where broadband Internet is currently classified.

The topic of Net Neutrality has generated a lot of controversy and debate in the last two years and there are many in the wireless industry that stongly oppose any form of intervention when the Internet is concerned.

AT&T's legislative affairs chief Jim Cicconi says "Friday's decision by the FCC is troubling and, in many respects, very unsettling. It will create investment uncertainty at a time when certainty is most needed. A greatly improved and much fairer approach would be for the FCC to defer the question of its legal authority to the U.S. Congress."

And there are some Congressmen on Capital Hill that agree the FCC should have no say on the topic of Net Neutrality, and have believed that from the beginning.

Lawmakers on both sides of the fence have asked the FCC to step back from net neutrality regulations on fears that the proposed rules could create uncertainties that would further confuse matters even worse, and that's exactly what has the CTIA, AT&T Mobility and Verizon wireless concerned.

In a post on AT&T's public policy blog, Cicconi said Friday the FCC has failed miserably to articulate the legal basis behind Genachowski's proposal, which would reclassify broadband Internet under Title II of the Communications Act while forbearing from many of the act's extensive regulatory provisions.

Some wireless industry observers are now expecting this to drag on even more over the next 12 months.

Verizon Public Affairs Officer Tom Tauke also said the FCC should hand the issue over to Congress and strongly echoed the CTIA's and AT&T's concerns about the impact of the proposed regulations on the wireless industry.

"Overall, reclassifying high-speed broadband Internet service as a telecom service is a terrible and in fact very stupid concept. The very negative consequences for online users and the Internet as a whole would be severe and have ramifications for at least the next 20 to 30 years and we cannot allow that. Rather than attempt to make the new world of Internet broadband fit into the regulatory scheme of the old telephone world, the FCC should instead acknowledge that this is an issue that only Congress should address."

But for its part, Sprint Nextel took a rather neutral stance on the inquiry approval, saying the FCC "must take the steps necessary to promote a competitive broadband market." The wireless carrier also said it understood the importance of having a clear legal basis for any regulatory regime and that it "appreciates" the FCC's "thoughtful approach" on the issue.

Understandably, the CTIA, AT&T and Verizon didn't agree with Sprint.

The CTIA called the FCC's action "a dangerous solution in search of a non-existent problem" and said it had significant concerns about the NOI, specifically its potential negative impact on long-term investments in the wireless industry.

While many in the mobile communications industry were opposed to Friday's decision, top Internet service companies, including Skype, eBay and Google all seem to support the agency's oversight of broadband Internet services.

Now the industry is waiting to see what kind of response some of the largest ISPs (Internet service providers) in the U.S. are about to formulate later today and Tuesday. Some think they might be very vocal about net neutrality, with the majority being strongly opposed to the idea.

CTIA President Steve Largent in a statement "If the FCC chooses to insert these rules in this extremely challenging economic climate, it would be an irresponsible move that could cause significant uncertainty – the exact opposite of the environment necessary to provide an incentive for future investment."

Largent also expressed serious concerns that the agency's light approach to broadband Internet regulations could be even a thing of the past. "We hope that is not the case, and we hope that the goal of this proceeding isn't to establish a legal basis for further micro-management of the exceptionally innovative and fast moving wireless broadband ecosystem," he said.

"As we have said repeatedly in the past, Internet broadband infrastructure is much too important to be left outside of any oversight," said Google Media Counsel Richard Whitt in a statement.

We will keep you posted on this and other important news developments as they happen.

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Source: The Wireless Association.