Advanced Television

FCC “No Internet haves and have nots”

May 1, 2014

tom-wheelerFCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told The Cable Show that the FCC is not likely to tolerate paid prioritisation if its impact is to disadvantage edge providers, saying that “If someone acts to divide the Internet between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots,’ we will use every power at our disposal to stop it. I consider that to include Title II.”

That is the threat of applying some form of common carrier mandatory access regulations to Internet access. Wheeler said anyone celebrating the press reports that his new network neutrality rules would gut the open Internet ‘should take off their party hats.’

Wheeler said that innovation is “fragile” and that broadband providers have an incentive to “interfere” with competing edge providers and that broadband providers have “powerful incentives to accept fees from edge providers, either in return for excluding their competitors or for granting them prioritized access to end users.”

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