Government
FCC to announce net neutrality principles
New rules will ban discrimination by application or type of content on Internet networks. The votes are in place. Net neutrality will become the law by next year.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski will announce a "net neutrality" principle today that would stop ISPs from blocking or throttling certain kinds of traffic The Washington Post reports.
Genachowski will also announce another principle preventing discimination against applications on wired and wireless Internet networks.
And he has the votes to get these net neutrality "principles" -- they represent the 5th and 6th principles, after the four principles passed by the FCC in 2005 -- since new commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, appears to be on board.
"There won't be any question that she is going to support the chairman on this," said a source close to the commissioner. "Commissioner Clyburn sees transparency and an open Internet across all platforms as key for consumers to know what kinds of services they receive."
Look for the official vote in October to approve the proposed rulemaking and launch a flurry of regulatory procedures. The final rule will be set by spring.
"Be they entrepreneurs or innovators or consumers or less powerful voices, a principle on transparency is about knowing how large carriers manage traffic on networks and understanding how their content will be treated ahead of time so no one is surprised," said a source at the agency. "So a CTO of a fledging start-up isn't shocked when a new product that got angel investment won't actually work on the Time Warner system, for example."