In an interesting turn of events, Comcast won a court battle to thwart regulation that’s paving the way for the FCC to respond in a way to increase regulation. This all stems from a court case where in 2007, Comcast “throttled” its users by blocking access to filesharing service BitTorrent. Net neutrality, which is supported by companies who rely on the Internet for business, such as Google and Amazon, is the absence of such throttling. Wearetheweb is an activist group fighting for net neutrality. The FCC stepped in, using the doctrine of “common carriers”, i.e., networks used for the public good. The broadband providers argue that they’re the ones spending billions on the infrastructure and therefore should be able to manage their systems in a manner they see fit. Comcast argued that the FCC rules had no teeth and are not the same as law, therefore the FCC order to stop throttling was illegal. The FCC has two courses of action at its disposal::

1. Request Congress to give it explicit authority to regulate broadband.
2. Appeal today’s decision.

Ben Scott, policy director for the public interest group, Free Press, noted::

“Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order…And they sliced right through the FCC’s arm and plunged the ax into their own back.”

Companies and industries tend to bend over backwards to regulate themselves to some extent or another, in order to thwart regulation. I find Comcast’s war with the FCC to be poor strategy and adding fuel to the fire of consumer dissatisfaction with telcos and broadband providers. This court case paves the way for the FCC to up the ante and given the FCC and the Obama administration support net neutrality.

As for Derveaux, here’s more on her story.

Twitterversion:: FCC loses case on net neutrality against Comcast, but will this just cause them to reclassify broadband? Possible strategic Comcast #fail. @Prof_K

Song:: Manish-‘Series of Tubes {Net Neutrality Dance Mix}