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F.C.C. Investigation Begins
Posted On: Jun 16, 2014

F.C.C. Begins Investigation Into Quality of Internet Download Speeds

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission has opened an investigation into recent deals where entertainment companies like Netflix have agreed to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for faster video delivery, a practice that critics contend will divide Internet service into fast and slow lanes.

Tom Wheeler, the F.C.C. chairman, said on Friday that the purpose of the investigation was to see whether consumers were getting the speed and quality of service that Internet service providers had promised. The inquiry resulted in part from more than 19,000 public comments submitted to the F.C.C. in recent weeks urging it to protect Internet freedom, he said.

“Consumers pay their I.S.P. and they pay content providers like Hulu, Netflix or Amazon,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Then when they don’t get good service, they wonder what is going on. I have experienced these problems myself and know how exasperating it can be.”

He added: “To be clear, what we are doing right now is collecting information, not regulating. We are looking under the hood. Consumers want transparency. They want answers. So do I.”

The thousands of comments from the public came in response to the agency’s proposal last month to institute a new set of rules that Mr. Wheeler and other commissioners said would keep the Internet free and maintain net neutrality, the concept that Internet service providers should treat all legal web traffic equally.

Critics, however, say the F.C.C.’s proposal would destroy net neutrality by allowing pay-for-priority deals, which could stifle start-up companies that do not have the cash to pay the tolls.

The move by the F.C.C. is significant because it has begun an investigation of Internet service providers at the same time that it is trying to define whether it has jurisdiction over their businesses. There is no guarantee that the commission has the power to do anything, because there are currently no rules in place to enforce net neutrality; two earlier attempts by the F.C.C. to forge rules were thrown out by an appeals court.

The agency has managed to get Internet service providers to agree to abide by net neutrality. But the deal between Netflix and Comcast, struck in February, has opened the commission to criticism that it is not enforcing net neutrality principles. Even Netflix itself, after agreeing to pay Comcast, objected to the terms of the agreement, asserting that it should not have to pay to stream its video content to its customers.

Mr. Wheeler as well as many others at the F.C.C. and in the Internet industry say that such agreements — known as peering or interconnection agreements — are not covered by net neutrality, arguing that the concept extends only to the so-called last mile of Internet service to the consumer’s screen.

The agency does, however, have the authority to ensure that telecommunications companies act in the public interest, and Mr. Wheeler appears to be acting under that authority.

Mr. Wheeler said he had viewed, “a couple of times,” a recent comedy segment by John Oliver on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” that explored the net neutrality debate. Mr. Oliver urged viewers to contact the F.C.C. and protest against net neutrality rules that would allow fast and slow lanes. So many people did so that the comments section of the F.C.C.’s website became gridlocked.

Calling the sketch “creative and funny,” Mr. Wheeler also noted that “satire is not C-Span,” suggesting that Mr. Oliver stretched some facts in the interest of comedy. Nevertheless, “it represents the high level of interest that exists in the topic in the country, and that’s good,” Mr. Wheeler said. Comcast and Verizon said they welcomed the inquiry.

“We welcome this review, which will allow the commission full transparency into the entire Internet backbone ecosystem and enable full education as to how this market works,” Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast’s vice president for government communications, said in a statement.

Most Internet service providers have said they intend to abide by net neutrality, and Comcast, as a result of concessions made when it bought NBCUniversal, is bound by the F.C.C.’s previous rules even though a court threw them out. Comcast has also said it will abide by net neutrality rules as a condition of its present efforts to buy Time Warner Cable, as has AT&T with respect to its proposed acquisition of DirecTV.

Public interest and consumer advocacy groups cheered the opening of the F.C.C. inquiry. These groups have been pushing for a strict definition of net neutrality and have asked the agency to reclassify Internet service so that it can regulated like a utility, similar to telephone service or electricity.

Republicans in Congress have warned the F.C.C. against trying to regulate the Internet, echoing comments made by the agency’s two Republican commissioners, who have said the net neutrality proposal is “a solution in search of a problem.”

But Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee, said the inquiry was important.

“As I said during the Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger,” he said, “when Internet service providers can charge tolls or block access to their networks at the interconnection point, net neutrality rules alone may no longer be enough to promote an open Internet.”


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