FCC to look into broadband business practices
Published March 26th, 2007
The Federal Communications Commission is looking into the business practices of broadband service providers. The inquiry is aimed to study how internet providers do business and if needed adopt regulations that ensure all internet traffic is equal in price and offerings as well as business-to-business dealings.
The announcement from the FCC outlines the study with four points in their official statement. The first point to the study will look into how broadband providers manage their internet traffic network wide. They will look in to pricing, attempting to learn whether the companies charge different prices for different speeds or capacities of service. They will determine if their policies should separate content providers who charge users for access to content and those who do not. Lastly, they will look into the consumer, with emphasis on how they are affected.
The last point the FCC made was the seeking of comments on “…whether the Policy Statement should incorporate a new principle of nondiscrimination and, if so, how would “nondiscrimination” be defined, and how would such a principle read.” According to news reports over the last several years, many online companies and consumer activist groups have attacked and pushed the US Congress for laws that prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing access to one form of content over another.
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