Everybody appears to be in agreement that the FCC should not be in the business of regulating broadband rates, including President Obama, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, and even some network neutrality activists.
Legislation has been introduced to prevent rate regulation so that given the FCC’s reclassification of Internet Access Services as a Title II service potentially subject to tariffs a future FCC could not decide to start enforcing that provision of the law—this FCC “forbore” from applying it.
Such legislation would provide at least some of the much-vaunted regulatory certainty, but it would have to be crafted carefully to be acceptable to both sides. It is worth the effort to find that common ground.
