My Federal Communication Conniption
My Federal Communication Conniption
by Brian Boyko, Contributor - November 19, 2014
The Political Problem
The President of the United States called for the FCC to reclassify ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act as “common carriers.”
Your telephone company is a common carrier. It is illegal for, say, Telephone Company A to degrade service quality for calls to your grandmother, who uses Telephone Company B, or charge you more to connect to Telephone Company B.
What’s problematic is that FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, is avoiding Title II regulation. And as Wheeler was a former lobbyist for the telecommunications industry, President Obama knew that Wheeler would probably not be for reclassifying ISPs as common carriers when he appointed him chair of the FCC back in November of 2013.
In fact, Wheeler is opposing Obama’s proposals. Naturally. Instead of putting the ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, he wants to classify them under the Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. However, courts have ruled that the FCC doesn’t have regulatory oversight of Section 706.
So, the President publically says one should classify ISPs as common carriers, but took the Continue reading