Comcast
said Thursday (May 6) it would be willing to explore FCC Chairman Julius
Genachowski's proposal for a "third way" approach to Internet
regulation.
Comcast
said in a statement that it would work with the commission to determine
"if" there was a way to allow the FCC to take limited measure to
preserve Internet openness and the broadband plan, but "cast the kind of
regulatory cloud that would chill investment and innovation by ISPs."
The chairman is proposing applying selected portions of Title II telecommunications
service regulation on the net, while forbearing (not applying) other parts,
which he Thursday called a compromise between the current regulatory
uncertainty and the too heavy hand of a full Title II reclassification.
That
regulatory uncertainty stemmed from a decision by a federal appeals court
overturning the FCC's smack down of Comcast over its network management/blocking
of BitTorrent uploads, which the FCC concluded was out of bounds. The court
said the FCC had not justified its authority to make that call.
But
while Comcast said it was willing to hear the FCC out, it also said it believed
that the existing Title I classification of broadband as a more lightly-regulated
information service "gives the commission sufficient authority to
implement both key goals of the National Broadband Plan and reasonable rules to
preserve an open Internet."
