Free Press, still upset over the "squandered opportunity" of net neutrality, is today urging the FCC to not "rubber stamp" the Comcast-NBC merger.

Free Press opposes the merger because "it would give the nation’s largest cable company and residential broadband provider massive media power and the ability to restrict its competitors’ access to both Comcast and NBC content."

Free Press Policy Counsel Corie Wright made the following statement today on freepress.net:

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said today that the Federal Communications Commission should be renamed the "Fabricating a Crisis Commission," following its vote to approve new rules to regulate certain aspects of the internet. Later on in a blistering attack of the FCC's actions this week, DeMint said he will push for legislation that limits the power of the FCC to act on its own in enforcing rules.

"Proceeding on its own liberal whims rather than facts, this FCC has chosen to grant itself broad authority to limit how businesses can bring the internet to consumers in faster and more innovative ways," DeMint said in a lengthy statement.

Time Warner Cable issued a statement yesterday in support of the Federal Communications Commission’s adoption of net neutrality rules. Cable companies like Time Warner support the new rules, say opponents of the measure, because the telecom industry helped write the draft proposal.

Time Warner called the rules "a workable balance between protecting consumers' interests and preserving incentives for investment and innovation by broadband Internet service providers." The company added that, while it thinks that "regulation is unnecessary and unwarranted," it is pleased with what the FCC has come up with because it avoids reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.

Here is the company line as it relates to consumers:

The Open Internet Coalition issued a statement this morning in anticipation of the FCC's vote on net neutrality sometime today. The full statement below:

"Our coalition has long maintained that we needed rules with the force of law to provide baseline protections to consumers and innovators. Today’s vote, coupled with strong future enforcement, would provide a degree of certainty to all participants in the broadband marketplace and help foster an open wireline Internet online ecosystem. We thank Chairman Genachowski for initiating this process and Commissioners Copps and Clyburn for improving the order to address important issues.

However, we also recognize the great potential that wireless broadband presents to consumers, innovators and the economy. The Commission should move to apply the same rules of the road to the entire Internet moving forward.

Senator Al Franken (D-MN) does not like the new net neutrality proposal and has said publically that it could do "more harm than doing nothing at all." Franken says this for a number of reasons: it exempts wireless broadband from any nondiscrimination provisions, it gives a nod of approval to paid prioritization. In his view, the FCC would be better off waiting and doing net neutrality the right way.

Franken is not alone in his criticism; Republicans don't want any form of net neutrality, while Democrats -- including advocacy groups such as Free Press and the ECA - don't like it because it doesn't do enough.

"I am very worried that the draft Order does not do enough to preserve that openness," he wrote to FCC Chair Julius Genachowski. In fact, as presently written, it could do "more harm than doing nothing at all."

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz says that he supports the net neutrality proposal put together by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. In an interview with the Huffington Post Leibowitz said the he supports the new proposals, and sees them as the best first step in getting some kind of net neutrality rules in place.

"There's a little disconnect between the reality of net neutrality and the big fight of net neutrality," said Leibowitz, speaking to the critics that believe it is all about government control of the Internet.

The rest of the interview deals with privacy, which the chairman has been vigorously pushing for this month. Read it here.

The FCC votes on net neutrality December 21.

The next House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, Fred Upton (R-Mich.), has urged the Federal Communications Commission to remove any planned conditions on the approval of a merger between NBC Universal and Comcast. Upton sent out a letter on Friday asking the FCC not to impose net-neutrality conditions on Comcast as part of the proposed acquisition of NBC Universal. Other Democratic lawmakers have urged the opposite, but Upton chairs the committee that oversees the telecommunications industry.

"I will be troubled if it appears that the Commission is using this transaction to accomplish broader, partisan objectives that it does not have the policy support to impose industry-wide, that it might not have the authority to pursue were it not presented with a license transaction, and that the parties cannot object to without risking their propose endeavor," Upton wrote.

Upton also urged the FCC not to let third parties or groups influence the process:

Nearly 80 net neutrality advocacy groups have thrown salt in the FCC's game this week. The groups wrote a letter to the FCC saying that the open Internet principles announced last week fall short of creating "real net neutrality" rules. Several interest groups, businesses, and civil rights groups signed the letter to the FCC, saying net neutrality rules should ban paid prioritization of online content (note the ECA is one of those eighty groups that signed on to the letter). They also said that Wireless carriers were given too much power to govern themselves, though some might argue that they need to considering the network congestion that space currently faces.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Ma.) is urging Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission to vote for Chairman Julius Genachowski's net neutrality proposal on December 21. The former presidential candidate and long-time Massachusetts Senator wrote a letter to Democratic Commissioners at the FCC saying that they should support it, despite it not being perfect.

"Some advocates for what we consider to be 'the perfect' are now urging you to fight and vote against the good. I would argue that is short sighted," Kerry wrote in a letter to FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, both Democrats.

Kerry is the chairman of the Senate Communications subcommittee. He said he would support the proposal with some reservations if he were a commissioner.

Republican Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker and fellow Republican Robert McDowell are already voicing their opposition to FCC chairman Genachowski's net neutrality proposal, set for a vote at the agency's next meeting on December 21. The biggest complaint of the two commissioners is that the chairman is not putting the proposal out for public comment.

"I’m afraid we are endangering a really important agenda. . . by pushing forward with a partisan, big-government regulatory issue that has no immediate need for us to act," Baker told Politico earlier this week. "We’re still in our preliminary assessment as to what it says, what it does, what the implications are, which is another reason why McDowell and I say it should be put out for comment," Baker said. "For something this major, we’re trying to figure out what the implications are."

Two House Democrats are asking the Federal Communications Commission to impose conditions on the proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal that would preserve affordable broadband service and fair access to online content.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the current (and soon to be former) chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski this week urging him to impose net neutrality-style rules barring the new entity from giving its own online video content special treatment over competitors.

"The combination of Comcast and NBCU will give the nation's largest cable TV company and broadband provider control of a massive catalogue of content, channels and household Internet connections," Waxman said. "Video programming and Internet distribution will be inextricably intertwined to an unprecedented degree."

The Entertainment Consumer Association sent out an alert this afternoon to its members urging them to write the Federal Communications Commission to tell them that America wants the net neutrality promised by the president during his campaign.

The ECA objects to the plan proposed by the FCC because it gives too many concessions to interest groups and service providers, excludes wireless providers from any new rules, and gives providers a green light to start using tiered pricing models based on the amount of bandwidth / data used. The ECA has set up a "call to action" page here.

Below is the complete letter from Brett Schenker, Online Advocacy Manager for the ECA:

A Washington Times editorial slams FCC chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to introduce and vote on net neutrality rules, instead preferring market solutions to deal with the problems of network congestion, prioritizing content, and more. The editorial is a bit odd considering all the concessions the FCC has given cable operators already.

The main thrust of the article is that the FCC is trying to expand its regulatory power into a sector that congress has had a hands-off policy on for over a decade. Sample:

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke Wednesday, offering a roadmap to net neutrality rules and regulations that he and other commissioners will discuss and inevitably vote on at the FCC's December 21 meeting. One of the things that many journalists noted was that the Chairman seemed to have backpedaled on many key points. Besides excluding wireless carriers from the equation, Genachowski mentioned "usage-based pricing."

Naturally, companies such as Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T see some of the concessions the FCC has made in its latest proposal as a strong victory for their side. Genachowski's support for pay-as-you-go pricing is a victory for these companies because it declares that broadband providers have the power to charge users for bandwidth they consume.

An addendum has been added to the FCC's agenda for the December 21 meeting: net neutrality. The addendum is labeled "Open Internet Order" and notes that "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will outline his net neutrality proposal in a speech" and that he plans to bring the issue to a vote by the "end of the year." Thanks Engadget. Here's the full addendum:

"Open Internet Order: An Order adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression. These rules would protect consumers' and innovators' right to know basic information about broadband service, right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic, and right to a level playing field, while providing broadband Internet access providers with the flexibility to reasonably manage their networks."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is in the weeds, as House Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Ca.) preps a bill that would set rules for net neutrality. As we detailed earlier, these are not the rules that net neutrality proponents wanted. What started out as a serious pursuit of new rules for broadband and wireless service providers has turned into a stall for the FCC.

Now Genachowski sits on the sidelines, looking impotent to proponents of new regulations. Earlier this year he delayed any decision on net neutrality rules until after the mid-term elections, and handed off the political football to the House Commerce Committee. Groups like New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative find the FCC's lack of movement on the issue discouraging.

While we do not know what the language of House Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman's (D-CA) net neutrality bill will contain, a leaked draft obtained by Tech Dose Daily gives us the cliff notes.

Waxman hopes to push the bill through the lame-duck session after the November mid-term elections, according to Tech Dose Daily. 

Onto what Tech Dose Daily says is the heart of the Waxman proposal on net neutrality:

- The FCC would not be allowed to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act.

- Broadband providers would be prohibited from blocking "lawful Internet traffic." This apparently does not apply to wireless providers.

The Federal Communications Commission announced this week that it would postpone a decision on net neutrality and solicit more public feedback. The move follows a busy August packed with closed door meetings with stakeholders, and proposals from Verizon and Google that have, by most accounts, made progress on the topic difficult.

The FCC announced Sept. 1 that it plans to postpone making a decision, possibly until November. While not stated by the FCC, upcoming mid-term elections that could change the balance of power in the house and senate - and in turn change who heads powerful oversight committees - are probably a factor as well.

Chairman Genachowski said that progress had been made on the issue, but that the FCC wants additional feedback on how to handle specialized services and mobile broadband.

Broadcasting & Cable reports that progress is being made in talks between the FCC and stakeholders. With a Sept. 2nd deadline looming, the FCC would probably like to have these meetings out of the way so they can make a decision on what to do next. Unfortunately, these meetings with stakeholders may prove to be fatal to key parts of the regulatory framework that the FCC and net roots groups were hoping to implement by reclassifying broadband and mobile services under Title II.

The report cites an investor note from Stifel Nicolaus Analyst Rebecca Arbogas, who says that "a general agreement that included concessions on wireless network neutrality by operators, commitments to a robust public Internet, and an expanded FCC role" are on the table. An anonymous source close to the talks also tells the publication that these negotiations "remained a work in progress."

Arbogas also wrote that she sees four possible outcomes:

FCC commissioner Michael Copps denounced the broadband regulatory proposals released by Google and Verizon last week at the Free Press-sponsored Future of the Internet forum in Minneapolis on Thursday. Copps said that those proposals were designed both companies' interests and not to support net neutrality

Copps also took issue with the fact that the deal attempts to diminish the FCC's authority to impose net neutrality rules and excludes wireless broadband services from any rules the FCC might make. He cited media consolidation and a decline in quality programming on broadcast channels as evidence that cable companies and content providers "can't be trusted to place the public's interests ahead of their own."

The FCC continues to listen to stakeholders in ongoing closed door meetings about net neutrality and some advocacy groups are pretty upset about it. Public interest groups are upset that a new round of net neutrality talks at the Information Technology Industry Council has once again excluded the net roots.

Instead, the FCC is listening to Internet and telecommunication lobbyists; yesterday they continued discussions at the D.C. offices of the ITI, according to Politico's Morning Tech. Negotiations, despite the frequency of meetings, have not gone well due in no small measure to the Google and Verizon proposal. This latest round of talks includes ITI members Cisco, Microsoft, and Skype, as well as AT&T, Verizon and NCTA.

Notable absences included ITI members Amazon and eBay (through represenation by Open Internet Coalition) and Google (who is not an ITI member). ITI is hosting the talks.

Advocates who represent the internet community, and who would normally support the OIC, are pretty upset that no group representing its interests were present during the meetings.

Source: Morning Tech

Minnesota senator and funny man Al Franken will give the opening remarks alongside FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn (who were both invited by Franken) at the Free Press-sponsored Future of the Internet forum in Minneapolis today - says Politico. Speaking to Tech Daily Dose, Franken's office said that the hearing "comes in the wake of Google's pact with Verizon to build toll lanes on the Internet," a reference to the proposal last week from the two companies as an alternative to FCC regulations.

The invite for the event reads: "Members of the community are encouraged to attend and to share their ideas, experiences and concerns with the commissioners. The meeting will focus on the FCC's responsibility to protect the open Internet for consumers and to foster universal broadband access across the country."

The event will take place at 6 p.m. in Minneapolis, and is co-hosted by Free Press, the Main Street Project and the Center for Media Justice.

Haley Van Dyck is a 24-year-old with a big job at the Federal Communications Commission: finding new ways to communicate better using technology. Serving as director of citizen engagement for the FCC’s "new-media" team, she is the driving force behind the freshly unveiled online Consumer Help Center, an update to the FCC's outdated website.

The changes are the result of President Barack Obama’s open government directive and an independent initiative of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, according to Politico. Van Dyck claims that these changes mark the beginning of "a consumer-centric focus” on the part of the FCC.

For the last 12 months the new-media team (comprised of six "specialists" has been trying to present all of the FCC's projects in an accessible, easy-to-digest way using all kinds of technology a social messaging including tweets, podcasts, blogs and crowd-sourcing platforms.

If the FCC was looking for some consensus building dialogue from the public comment phase of its proposed "third way" to net neutrality, it will be sadly disappointed. The public comments show that, depending on what side of the issue they are on, stakeholders refuse to budge in inch from their stated positions.

AT&T calls the "third way" to net neutrality the "wrong way," with the sentiment echoed by broadband and telecoms companies like AT&T Time Warner Cable and Qwest offering similar negative comments. Wireless carrier trade group CTIA calls the third way proposal a "radical change," "unnecessary," and heavy regulation under a different name. Communication companies continue to say that net neutrality rules will lead to a decrease in investment, which in turn will jeopardize implementing the Administration's ambitious National Broadband Plan.

Meanwhile on the other side of the issue Google says that the opposite will happen if the "third way" is implemented; "Google says that it will "promote legal certainty and regulatory predictability to spur investment."

According to PC Magazine the Federal Communications Commission held closed door meetings with lobbyists for the country's top telecoms in Washington on Monday. According to the report lobbyists from AT&T, Verizon, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and Internet companies like Google and Skype are meeting with the FCC to talk about Net Neutrality. This does not sit well with organizations pushing for Net Neutrality at all - mainly because of the lack of transparency the FCC is showing in holding the meetings in the first place.

The meetings come on the heels of the FCC opening a public comment period last week to figure out how it should proceed regarding broadband Internet regulation. Monday's meeting included a discussion with lobbyists about how the FCC might avoid changes to Internet regulation rules, but still be able to enforce "net neutrality" rules. Another meeting was scheduled for today.

Consumer group Free Press was very unhappy with the FCC's meetings:

As Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski grapples with a decision on whether or not to reclassify broadband service in order to wield influence over it, AT&T is playing hardball by threatening to cut back on its U-Verse spending in light of additional government authority.

U-Verse is an AT&T IPTV service that offers high-speed Internet, phone and television programming and counts 2.3 million current subscribers. It is currently available to 24 million homes, a number expected to reach 30 million by the end of 2011. AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told the Wall Street Journal however, that FCC reclassifying of broadband from Title 1 to Title 2 would mean, “…we have to re-evaluate whether we put shovels in the ground.”

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continues to lick its wounds following a recent court loss to Comcast, a provision could emerge from financial overhaul legislation that would boost the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) governing ability over the Internet.

The Washington Post reports that a current version of regulatory overhaul legislation passed by the House would, “allow the FTC to issue rules on a fast track and permit the agency to impose civil penalties on companies that hurt consumers.”

The Post notes that, while such a provision is absent from current legislation before the Senate, “some observers expect the measure to be included when the House and Senate versions are combined.”

Why some groups believe the FTC's power should be expanded:

In the wake of Comcast emerging triumphant over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a court spat regarding the media company’s throttling of peer-to-peer traffic, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has a serious decision to make.

A picture USA Today paints of the situation insinuates that Genachowski has two choices: he can attempt to get regulators to define broadband Internet as a “highly regulated common carrier service like telephones,” or “he can let cable and phone companies call the shots by allowing it to remain a lightly regulated information service.”

In what could be a blow to the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Net Neutrality and National Broadband Plan initiatives, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to force Internet providers to grant equal treatment to all traffic traversing their networks.

Comcast Corporation v. Federal Communications Commission and United States of America hinged on whether or not the FCC, “has authority to regulate an Internet service provider’s network management practices.” The FCC was attempting to stop Comcast from interfering with its customer’s use of peer-to-peer networking applications.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its National Broadband Plan to Congress.

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski called the document an “action plan” for a “21st century roadmap to spur economic growth and investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens, and engage in our democracy.”

An Executive Summary of the Plan (PDF) stated that nearly 200 million Americans possessed a broadband Internet connection as of last year, up from 8 million in 2000. 100 million citizens are still without broadband at home however and perhaps more importantly, “nearly a decade after 9/11, our first responders still lack a nationwide public safety mobile broadband communications network.”