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["christian stalberg" <cstalberg AT web-analysts.net>]

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/16/blue-bell-democrats-ask-fcc-to-tone-it-down-on-net-neutrality/

 

OCTOBER 16, 2009, 4:24 PM ET

 

‘Blue Bell’ Democrats Ask FCC to Tone It Down on Net Neutrality

 

By Amy Schatz

In the long fight over open Internet, or net neutrality, rules on Internet providers, we’re still essentially in pre-game.

Getty Images

Rep. Heath Shuler, one of the Democratic congressmen calling for the FCC to tone down its proposed net-neutrality rules.

You’d never know it from the flurry of lobbying across the country this week.

On Friday, it was House Democrats’ turn, when 72 members sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, asking him to soften a net-neutrality proposal the agency is expected to approve next week.

The lawmakers urged the FCC to “carefully consider the full range of potential consequences that government action may have on network investment,” while crafting the proposed rules. Phone and cable companies have been making similar points to the FCC, arguing the agency should avoid rules that will hobble their ability to manage their networks and stifle investment.

The letter added that “we would urge you to avoid tentative conclusions which favor government regulation” and that “we remain suspicious of conclusions based on slogans rather than substance and of policies that restrict and inhibit the very innovation and growth that we all seek to achieve.”

There are plenty of things rumored to be in the proposed rules — which haven’t been released yet — that have Internet providers fuming.

But none appears to have phone and cable companies as apoplectic as one proposal, circulated by Genachowski, which says that net-neutrality rules would apply to all parts of an Internet pipe, not just the chunk that’s set aside for Internet traffic.

Phone and cable companies divvy up space on their fiber lines for different things, including phone service, pay-TV channels and other premium services, like private corporate-data networks. They’re concerned that the FCC will have veto power over whether they can offer these sorts of “managed services” on their networks.

The FCC mailroom has been working overtime this week keeping up with the deluge of letters that have been arriving from congressmen, governors and state legislators. They, in turn, have been getting visits from cable or phone lobbyists who are in the midst of an all-hands-on-deck effort to get changes to the proposed rules before they’re released.

At last count, there have been 11 letters from governors (a mix of Republicans and Democrats), 18 Republican Senators, House minority leadership and now, the 72 House Democrats, which includes 18 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 31 Blue Dog Democrats and 10 members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC.

On Thursday, the Communications Workers of America weighed in on the side of phone companies (which employ thousands of CWA members) and asked the agency to have a “reasoned discussion” about the rules and focus on ones that don’t prompt phone companies to halt network investments.

Net-neutrality advocates weren’t happy about the letter from the congressional Democrats, dubbing them “Blue Bell” Democrats — in honor of the fact that lobbyists for the former Baby Bell phone companies have been pounding the halls of Capitol Hill this week trying to get support for the letter.

“In parroting the misinformation put forward by the big telecom companies, the Blue Bell Caucus only condemns their constitutes to inferior service and limited opportunities to succeed in an Internet-based economy,” said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital-rights interest group that’s lobbied for net-neutrality rules.

Meanwhile, the FCC took the unusual step of saying that anyone else who wants to weigh in on the proposed rules can post a comment on one of its new broadband blogs. The agency usually bans lobbying on issues it’s considering a week before the vote.