Groups Seek Clarity On Net Neutrality
Posted: Tuesday November 10, 2009
By Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal
A coalition of public interest groups are calling on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to clarify the agency’s position on network neutrality. In a letter sent Monday to Genachowski, the Media Access Project, Free Press, Consumers Union and the New America Foundation voiced concern with recent comments from an FCC official that seemed to indicate that network management may include priority treatment of high-bandwidth applications, the groups said in a news release. The groups said they want to be assured that some FCC officials are not pre-judging the outcome of the FCC’s rulemaking on the issue of network neutrality, which is aimed at preserving the Internet’s openness.
The letter noted that a recent news report indicated that “the official had concluded that voice and video ‘have special requirements’ and that prioritization of such traffic is reasonable network management. The same report also cites the official as saying that the commission will be focusing on ‘different treatment of comparable applications,’ a policy that would not seem to prohibit either deliberate prioritization or degradation of any broad class or category of applications,” the groups wrote. An FCC spokesman declined to comment on the letter.