Newspaper Article- Week 9

The article i wanted to do this week is an article on the Associated Press website. It was published on October 22nd at 3:38 PM. It is entitled FCC votes begin crafting 'net neutrality' rules written by Joelle Tessler. The article states Federal regulators took an important step Thursday toward prohibiting broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain kinds of Internet traffic.
Despite the concerns of the telecommunications industry and the agency's two Republicans, the Federal Communications Commission voted to begin writing so-called "network neutrality" regulations to prevent phone and cable companies from abusing their control over the market for broadband access. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said regulations are needed to ensure that broadband subscribers can access all legal Web sites and services, including Internet calling applications and video sites that compete with the broadband companies' core businesses. "Internet users should always have the final say about their online service," Genachowski said. The FCC's two other Democrats voted to support his plan. The agency's two Republican commissioners voted merely to start the formal rule-making process, but said they have reservations about the substance of Genachowski's proposal. Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said he remains unconvinced that broadband providers are engaging in widespread anticompetitive behavior that requires government intervention. The broadband providers insist they need flexibility, free from government intervention, to keep their networks running smoothly and prevent high-bandwidth applications such as streaming video from hogging too much capacity. They also warn that net neutrality regulations would discourage them from expanding and upgrading their networks. "We continue to hope that any rules adopted by the commission will not harm the investment and innovation that has made the Internet what it is today," Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen said in a statement. But companies such as Google, Amazon.com Inc., eBay Inc.'s Skype and Facebook Inc. argue that without such rules, the broadband companies will become online gatekeepers that can prioritize their own online services or those of their business partners - and potentially put others at a disadvantage. That point was echoed by several key Democrats in Congress Thursday. "We need to ensure that special interests cannot erect toll booths on the information superhighway that impede the innovation that has helped power our economy and create jobs," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a member of the House subcommittee that oversees technology and the Internet. Genachowski's plan calls for the agency to formally adopt four broadband principles that have guided the FCC's enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis. Those principles state that network operators must allow subscribers to access all online content, applications, services and devices as long as they are legal. The FCC relied on those guidelines last year when it ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from using an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent, which is used to transfer big files such as online video. Comcast is appealing the decision, arguing that the agency doesn't have authority to mandate nondiscrimination rules, and a court ruling in its favor could undermine the current proceeding. The agency will also have to determine how to apply net neutrality rules to wireless networks, which face bandwidth constraints because of spectrum limitations. This was a very interesting article to me because the FCC is setting votes to begin crafting net neutrality rules. Several Democratic's agreed with the crafting of these new rules. The only problem i have with this is will it overload my computer with unnecessary ads. Will broadband become slower than its regular speed?