FCC TO DISCUSS NET NEUTRALITY ON DECEMBER 21ST

According to the tentative agenda of the FCC's December 21st meeting, net neutrality will be one of the topics.  From the agenda description:

Open Internet Order: An Order adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression. These rules would protect consumers' and innovators' right to know basic information about broadband service, right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic, and right to a level playing field, while providing broadband Internet access providers with the flexibility to reasonably manage their networks.

According to the AP, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will outline his net neutrality proposal in a speech on Wednesday, with plans to bring the new rules to a full vote before the end of the year and ahead of the newly elected Republicans taking their seats in the House.

The AP has also recieved an advance copy of Genachowski's speech showing some highlights.

• Wired broadband providers will be required to let subscribers access all legal content, applications, and services with the flexibility to manage network congestion and spam as long as they publicly disclose their network management approach. Broadband providers would also be allowed to experiment with dedicated networks to route traffic from specialized services like smart grids and home security systems as long as they "don't hurt the public internet."

• Wireless providers would also be required to disclose network management practices and be prohibited from blocking access to web sites or competing applications like cellphone VoIP services. However, they'd be given more flexibility to manage traffic due to relative bandwidth constraints. In other words, wireless networks will still be special under the FCC proposal, just not as special as the plan pitched by Google / Verizon (which only required transparency) over the summer.

• The proposal would leave the FCC's regulatory framework for broadband unchanged as a lightly regulated "information service," not as a "common carrier" as Genachowski had wanted. 

We should stress that the agenda is tentative and subject to change and we are sure the lobbyists will be out in Congress and at the FCC in full force. [Engadget]