Better late than never, I’ve finally given a close read to the Notice of Inquiry issued by the FCC on June 17th. (See my earlier comments, “FCC Votes for Reclassification, Dog Bites Man”.)
In some sense there was no surprise to the contents; the Commission’s legal counsel and Chairman Julius Genachowski had both published comments over a month before the NOI that laid out the regulatory scheme the Commission now has in mind for broadband Internet access.
Chairman Genachowski’s “Third Way” comments proposed an option that he hoped would satisfy both extremes. The FCC would abandon efforts to find new ways to meet its regulatory goals using “ancillary jurisdiction” under Title I (an avenue the D.C. Circuit had wounded, but hadn’t actually exterminated, in the Comcast decision), but at the same time would not go as far as some advocates urged and put broadband Internet completely under the telephone rules of Title II.
Instead, the Commission would propose a “lite” version of Title II, based on a few guiding principles:
- Recognize the transmission component of broadband access service—and only this component—as a telecommunications service;
- Apply only a handful of provisions of Title II (Sections 201, 202, 208, 222, 254, and 255) that, prior to the Comcast decision, were widely believed to be within the Commission’s purview for broadband;
- Simultaneously renounce—that is, forbear from—application of the many sections of the Communications Act that are unnecessary and inappropriate for broadband access service; and
- Put in place up-front forbearance and meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach.
The NOI pretends not to take a position on any of three possible options – (1) stick with Title I and find a way to make it work, (2) reclassify broadband and apply the full suite of Title II regulations to Internet access providers, or (3) compromise on the Chairman’s Third Way, applying Title II but forbearing on any but the six sections noted above—at least, for now (see ¶ 98). It asks for comments on all three options, however, and for a range of extensions and exceptions within each.
I’ve written elsewhere (see “Reality Check on ‘Reclassifying’ Broadband” and “Net Neutrality and the Inconvenient Constitution”) about the dubious legal foundation on which the FCC rests its authority to change the definition of “information services” to suddenly include broadband Internet, after successfully (and correctly) convincing the U.S. Supreme Court that it did not. That discussion will, it seems, have to wait until its next airing in federal court following inevitable litigation over whatever course the FCC takes.
This post deals with something altogether different—a number of startling tidbits that found their way into the June 17th NOI. As if Title II weren’t dangerous enough, there are hints and echoes throughout the NOI of regulatory dreams to come. Beyond the hubris of reclassification, here are seven surprises buried in the 116 paragraphs of the NOI—its seven deadly sins. In many cases the Commission is merely asking questions. But the questions hint at a much broader—indeed overwhelming—regulatory agenda that goes beyond Net Neutrality and the undoing of the Comcast decision.
For the gory details, see "The Seven Deadly Sins of Title II Reclassification".