The FCC and the Internet

[Commentary] With the Internet fast becoming the most important communications channel, it is untenable for the United States not to have a regulator to ensure nondiscriminatory access, guarantee interconnectivity among rival networks and protect consumers from potential abuse.

Yet that's exactly where the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left us all when it said this month that the Federal Communications Commission didn't have the authority to regulate the Internet — and specifically, could not force the cable giant Comcast to stop blocking peer-to-peer sites. The decision, in the words of the FCC's general counsel, Austin Schlick, undermines the agency's ability to serve as "the cop on the beat for 21st-century communications networks." It also puts at risk big chunks of the FCC's strategy for increasing the reach of broadband Internet to all corners of the country and fostering more competition among providers. Fortunately, the commission has the tools to fix this problem. Any move now by the FCC to redefine broadband would surely unleash a torrent of lawsuits by broadband providers, but the commission has solid legal grounds to do that. To begin with, the three arguments advanced by the FCC during the Bush years have proved wrong. Rather than seeing an explosion of new competition, the broadband access business has consolidated to the point that many areas of the country have only one provider. Broadband Internet has unbundled into a business with many unrelated information service providers vying for space on the pipelines of a few providers. And most persuasively: broadband access is probably the most important communication service of our time. One that needs a robust regulator.