April 18, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The Federal Communications Commission (fcc.gov) met at Stanford University on Thursday to talk about the hot-button issue of Net Neutrality and to discuss ideas behind how to relieve online congestion while abiding to the principle that "all Internet traffic be treated equal."
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The event - the FCC's second public hearing this year on net neutrality - was sparked after formal complaints were recently launched against cable operator Comcast for reportedly blocking peer-to-peer file sharing by its customers. Comcast says it did it to manage congestion for the good of all its customers.
Canada recently had its own case of arguable traffic management when telecommunications provider Bell was called on by ISPs for throttling traffic on its networks, giving favor to certain types of traffic while slowing down the bandwidth taken up by others, like torrent transfers through applications like BitTorrent.
According to several reports, the five-member commission was divided with how to resolve the situation. FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein called for the agency to strengthen its power to prevent Comcast and its competitors from unfairly discriminating against some customers. Copps also called for strengthening the FCC's Internet policy to include an anti-discriminatory rule.
But two others, Deborah Tate and Robert McDowell, warned against burdening the industry with additional, costly regulations.
The fifth member, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin argued that the FCC's current Internet policy is sufficient but said the FCC's policy needs to be enforced to guarantee that whatever actions Internet service providers are taking "is tailored to a legitimate purpose."
Martin is seen as a swing vote on the commission for his insistence that the FCC's Internet policy, which guarantees that consumers can access all the lawful content they desire, is enforceable. Comcast officials and other service providers argue that the FCC's Internet policy is merely advisable and not a regulation.
Martin also said that Comcast and other companies should be permitted to manage their networks to ensure traffic flows smoothly, but that customers should be given notice.
Most of the 15 witnesses that were scheduled to testify at the hearing favored barring companies from blocking subscriber usage, even in the name of controlling Internet traffic.
The FCC is formally investigating whether Comcast should be fined for blocking some subscribers from uploading files.
