Molly Mattern

4/11/2011
Prof. Clark
Weekly Research Assignment
Source: The New York Times; By Wyatt, Edward; April 8, 2011
“House Votes Against ‘Net Neutrality’”
 The House of Representatives approved a measure on Friday that would prohibit the Federal
Communications Commission from regulating how Internet service providers manage their
broadband networks, potentially overturning a central initiative of the F.C.C. chairman, Julius
Genachowski.
 The action, which is less likely to pass the Senate and which President Obama has threatened to
veto, is nevertheless significant because it puts half of the legislative branch on the same side of the
debate as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in restricting the F.C.C.’s
authority over Internet service.
 House Joint Resolution 37, which was approved by a vote of 240 to 179, was spurred by the F.C.C.’s
approval in December of an order titled “Preserving the Open Internet.”
 The order forbids the companies that provide the pipeline through which consumers gain access to
the Internet from blocking a user’s ability to reach legal Internet sites or to use legal applications.
 But Republicans in the House maintained that the order exceeded the F.C.C.’s authority and put the
government in the position of overseeing what content a consumer could see and which companies
would benefit from Internet access.
 The F.C.C. order “could open the Internet to regulation from all 50 states,” Mr. Walden said, and
was little more than the Obama administration’s attempt to use the regulatory process “to make an
end run around” the Court of Appeals ruling.
 Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, warned of dire consequences should the
resolution be approved. “This is a bill that will end the Internet as we know it and threaten the jobs,
investment and prosperity that the Internet has brought to America,” Mr. Waxman said.
 President Obama courted Silicon Valley supporters during his campaign by promising to enact a “net
neutrality” provision, as the F.C.C.’s order is known. Advisers to the president have said that he will
veto the resolution; it would then take a vote by two-thirds of each house of Congress to override
the veto.
 During the debate on Friday, each side accused the other of safeguarding the interests of big
companies. Democrats said that Republicans were protecting the interests of the cable and phone
company giants that are the dominant providers of broadband Internet service to American
households. Those companies generally oppose the F.C.C. order, because they believe they need to
be able to direct traffic on their networks as they see fit.
 Republicans countered by accusing Democrats of protecting big technology companies, like Google,
Amazon and Netflix, that have become successful because of the lack of Internet regulation but
which now want to protect their turf from new competitors.
 Few of the debaters raised some of the more technical issues that are at the center of the debate
over broadband regulation, like specialized services and tiered rates. Specialized services, for which
a broadband company uses part of its Internet pipeline to deliver dedicated services to specific
customers, worry regulators who fear that companies will invest more to develop those more
profitable offerings while neglecting to update basic broadband service.
 Just as a customer at a fast-food restaurant pays more for a large Coke than for a small one, Mr.
Terry said, Internet companies should be free to charge customers more if they consume a greater
amount of bandwidth because of heavy use of features like streaming video.
I do not know much about this issue but I think that Mr. Waxman raises an interesting point about this
bill being “an end to the Internet.” Hopefully this would not be the case and that the bill would be
helpful and not hurtful, but if it is deemed that this bill would be ineffective then it should not be passed
or it should be edited before being passed.