Wired: FCC Expected To Announce Support of Net Neutrality Monday

An Obama campaign promise regarding net neutrality will become reality. The FCC is expected to rule that the largest Internet providers cannot deploy enhanced real time content if these services would meanprioritizing or delaying delivery of some content, such as that of P2P networks (aka, filesharing or mp3 file sharing networks) or even bulk email. At  last count spam represents 90% of all email. Or so the FCC seems to be ready to declare on Monday. The debate about net neutrality was always part ideology, part nostalgia for the time when the Internet was for geeks, and part anti monopolist campaineering. In essence, it was a debate between those who demanded that the Internet be treated like some sort of People’s Park, where the lowest spammer and video on demand services be treated the same, and those who belive that a free for all Internet can only go so far in deploying advanced services. The former won, at least for now.

The move represents a win for ‘net neutrality’ groups like Public Knowledge, which have unsuccessfully pushed for more explicit rules from Congress and the FCC in order to prevent cable companies from discriminating against online video sites or DSL companies from throttling competing net phone calling services.

The news has the wireless industry worried.

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“As we’ve said before, we are concerned about the unintended consequences that net neutrality regulation would have on investments from the very industry that’s helping to drive the U.S. economy,” Chris Guttman-McCabe, who is the CTIA-The Wireless Association VP for regulatory affairs, said in a statement. “We believe that this kind of regulation is unnecessary in the competitive wireless space as it would prevent carriers from managing their networks — such as curtailing viruses and other harmful content — to the benefit of their consumers.”

via FCC Expected To Announce Support of Net Neutrality Monday | Epicenter | Wired.com.

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