Markey Revives Net Neutrality Debate

Steve Largent, CTIA’s president and CEO, agreed. He said – as CTIA has emphasized all along – that Markey’s bill is trying to fix a non-existent problem. He cited evidence collected by the FCC, Federal Trade Commission and independent researchers that “proves that wireless broadband adoption is spreading like wildfire across this country,” he said. “This wouldn't be happening if consumers weren't getting the service, value and access to content they desire.”

The Hands Off the Internet coalition, whose members include Alcatel-Lucent and Qwest Communications International Inc., concurred.

“The continued push by special interests to regulate Internet neutrality undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband. Network innovation and deployment free from federal regulation are the keys to meet consumers’ rapidly growing bandwidth demands,” group leaders noted in a written statement.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste decried the bill because it calls for the FCC to hold eight summits throughout the country and conduct a study, the costs of which the council said would be too expensive to justify.

“More importantly,” added David Williams, vice president of the council, “during the FCC and FTC deliberations more than a quarter of a million public comments were submitted; there is no way to tell how much money will be wasted on eight summits but what is clear is that after two years of debate the public has spoken.”

Markey introduced his bill as the FCC continues collecting comments on its “Broadband Industry Practices” docket, a look at whether net neutrality rules are necessary. On Tuesday, Comcast filed an 80-page document that defended P2P content-slowing. It said services such as BitTorrent use more than their fair share of bandwidth to distribute videos, music and programs. The cable operator, which boasts more than 13 million Internet subscribers, said it must be allowed to manage its network to avoid congestion and application impairment.

“Comcast only manages those P2P protocols that have a demonstrated history of generating excessive burdens on the network based on objective criteria applied equally to all Internet protocols," the company wrote.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), of which Comcast is a member, filed similar supporting comments on Tuesday. The organization said managing congestion, primarily caused by P2P networks, is “essential to ensuring the highest quality and diversity of broadband service.”