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December 2009 | Volume 12 / Number 12
Regulation Watch

Revisiting the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement

The FCC (News - Alert)’s Internet policy statement had its four-year anniversary in September 2009. Since the statement was released, it has been the subject of continuous interpretation and debate. It has guided the commission’s public interest analysis in numerous proceedings, such as the Verizon (News - Alert)/MCI and SBC/AT&T mergers. And the commission has used it as an enforcement tool to prevent service providers from engaging in “unreasonable network management practices.”

Most recently, Congress directed NTIA and RUS to use it as a guiding principle in the broadband deployment grants under the 2009 Recovery Act, whereby NTIA and RUS were required to apply the principles of the Internet policy statement to broadband funding recipients.




After four years, the FCC looks poised to reexamine, and possibly update, the Internet policy statement. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (News - Alert) was largely responsible for drafting President Obama’s technology and innovation plan, which likewise supports an open network and the principle of network neutrality to preserve and promote competition on the Internet, and has strongly reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to enforce its network neutrality principles. The chairman also has recently signaled that the commission will open a new proceeding to reexamine and possibly revise the Internet Policy Statement to prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against any particular Internet content or applications, and also to require carriers to disclose publicly their network management practices.

If approved by the commission, such enforceable principles will squarely affect the VoIP community. By its five-year anniversary, the Internet policy statement may be significantly expanded from its initial inception, and become the basis for a major shift in the regulatory landscape for VoIP providers and facilities-based carriers alike. IT

William B. Wilhelm (News - Alert) is a partner and Jeffrey R. Strenkowski is counsel at the global law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP (www.bingham.com).

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