Comcast said it would be willing to explore Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal for a "third way" approach to Internet regulation.
Comcast said in a May 6 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."
