Internet: Verizon appeals FCC "Net Neutrality" order

Michael E. Glover, Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel says "Today's filing is the result of a careful review of the FCC's order. We are deeply concerned by the FCC's assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself. We believe this assertion of authority goes well beyond any authority provided by Congress, and creates uncertainty for the communications industry, innovators, investors and consumers."

He says that Verizon has "worked extensively with all players in the Internet and communications space to shape policies that ensure an open Internet and encourage investment, innovation and collaboration with content providers and others to meet the needs of consumers."

The fuss is because, in December, the USA's FCC introduced what they termed "Net Neutrality Rules" designed to "preserve the open internet."

"Net Neutrality" is the trendy term given to the banning - or at least restricting - the use of "shaping" and other technologies designed to restrict fully open access to the internet. ISPs and other comms companies want to do that because some users hog bandwidth and some content providers deliver bandwidth-hungry services which means that the overall service levels fall.

It's like the taps in your house: there's only so much water that can flow down a half-inch-pipe but users and content providers are demanding every larger pipes and faster water delivery without wanting to pay for it.

The whole thing started over the ISPs saying that their bandwidth was being sucked dry by P2P services including illegal file sharing. But it expanded to on-line games, video on demand, streamed radio and other services.

It's not just in the USA: ISPs in the UK made vociferous complaints when the BBC released its "iPlayer" - so many people wanted to watch it, the ISPs said, that it slowed their networks. Then users - including those who were not using iPlayer and therefore did nothing to slow the system - began to complain that their system was slow and not achieving the advertised speeds. Indeed, this author regularly finds that BBC iPlayer says that he has insufficient speed even to stream audio: it's a 2MB SDSL connection so no genuine issue there.

Verizon is not the only US company challenging the FCC's decision that the companies cannot "unfairly discriminate" against any specific content. But banning P2P will still be OK - an interesting development given that Skype - which, of course, takes revenue out of phone companies' pockets - is a form of P2P. Other VoIP does not use the same technology.

However, there is much doubt as to whether the FCC has the power to make such rules.