FCC Net neutrality rules reach mobile apps

FCC Net neutrality rules reach mobile apps

Net neutrality advocates in Washington have long insisted that eventual government regulations would be simple and easy to understand. Public Knowledgehas called the Net neutrality concept "ridiculously simple," and Free Presssaid the rules would be "clear" and easy to understand.

The Federal Communications Commission finally released its long-expected regulations this afternoon, which it had previouslyapproved on a 3-2 party line vote earlier this week, and they're not exactly "ridiculously" simple. The rules and the related explanations total a whopping 194 pages (PDF).

One new item that was not previously disclosed: mobile wireless providers can't block "applications that compete with the provider's" own voice or video telephony services. By including that rule, the FCC effectively sided with Skype over wireless carriers.

A series of disputes erupted last year over whether Skypewould be allowed on smartphones and over whether it was AT&T or Apple that wasresponsible for Google Voice not appearing in theiPhone's App Store. (In October 2009, AT&Tagreed to support voice over Internet Protocol applications such as Skype on its 3G network, and Google Voiceappeared as an iPhone application last month.)

The legality of "paid prioritization," which previously was ambiguous, also has been cleared up. The concept means a broadband provider favoring some traffic over other traffic. That would mean Amazon.com can't, theoretically, pay Comcast for its Web site to load faster than Barnes & Noble's.

The FCC acknowledged there's no evidence that "U.S. broadband providers currently engage in such arrangements." But because any pay-for-priority deals would "represent a significant departure from historical" practice and potentially raise barriers to entry on the Internet, they should be outlawed.

That section of today's order, which has been championed by Chairman Julius Genachowski, rejects arguments about paid prioritization that AT&T made earlier this year.AT&T noted it already had "hundreds" of customers who have paid extra for higher-priority services, and it argued that the Internet Engineering Task Force's specifications explicitly permit the practice.

Genachowski had said during Tuesday's vote that the rules would require all broadband providers including mobile services to disclose their network management practices, and that non-mobile providers would be prohibited from blocking and "unreasonably" discriminating against network traffic.

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