The Federal Communications Commission is walking away from talks with the US’s major telephone, cable, television and internet companies over the issue of net neutrality. After weeks of closed talks, the FCC released a statement that said it was…
The Federal Communications Commission is walking away from talks with the US’s major telephone, cable, television and internet companies over the issue of net neutrality. After weeks of closed talks, the FCC released a statement that said it was abandoning the process as the talks have not: “generated a robust framework to preserve openness and freedom of the Internet.”
It means that in the future the internet may become a multi-tiered, multi-payment landscape.
Julius Genachowski, the head of the FCC had been negotiating with Google, Skype, AT&T, Verizon and others to find a compromise that would keep the internet free and accessible to everyone. However, the telcos and cablecos had been arguing that the internet content providers would have to pay for the bandwidth that they use to deliver services such as Skype or You Tube. However, at the same time Google and Verizon were conducting parallel secret talks and have now apparently hammered out a deal between them as to how they will manage web content between the two of them. Reports about the deal said Verizon agreed not to slow or block the delivery of content on the Web – such as movie files, which soak up lots of bandwidth – but it could favour certain types of Web content on wireless devices. Web companies, such as Google, could pay Verizon for faster delivery of their content.
Genachowski had been fighting such a adeal and said on Thursday: “Any outcome, any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable.”
It seems he has been ignored, despite Google and Verizon publically stating that they aren’t trying to do a back-room deal between the two of them away from the main talks. AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi said he was “disappointed that the net neutrality talks convened by the FCC have broken down,” as “We put a number of significant concessions on the table and, despite today’s setback, remain convinced that a consensus solution can be achieved.”
