While key players are slugging it out over ISP content filtering, the Federal Communications Commission has released a slew of decisions and announcements about broadband. They include a new public hearing on broadband network management practices and new rules for telecommunications services in apartment buildings. And one of the commissioners attempted to ease concerns of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) over the impact of net neutrality regulations. (We covered the FCC's latest data on high speed broadband deployment last night.)

Content filtering flap



Earlier this week, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told a symposium on Internet Video Policy that the various net neutrality proposals the agency is considering include "exemptions for illegal activities." Content Agenda's Paul Sweeting reports that Adelstein said that the Commission will be "very careful about the use of the Internet for illegal purposes, and that includes the illegal downloading of copyrighted works, which is a very serious problem." But, Sweeting adds, that doesn't mean Adelstein approves of content filtering. "The problem is, how can you ever tell what's illegal?" Adelstein asked the gathering.

This issue, of course, flutters close to the heart of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and MPAA, parties which have filed early and often in the FCC's proceeding on the matter. The MPAA's February 28 statement asserts that "ISPs must be able to use network management techniques to address the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content taking place over their networks, for the benefit of legitimate consumers and subscribers." The powerful movie studio lobby filed the comment over a week before taking a public stand against net neutrality at the Showest convention in Las Vegas. There, MPAA boss Dan Glickman declared that government regulation of the Internet "would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks today."

The MPAA's stance has provoked a less publicized but quite furious response from the Independent Film and Television Alliance, whose CEO Jean Prewitt forwarded the IFTA's statement to the FCC's net neutrality docket. Prewitt's March 14 comment disclosed that the group was "astounded to read" that the MPAA had come out against net neutrality. Describing the Internet as the only truly open opportunity for independent filmmakers, Prewitt called that hope "threatened by the power of a small number of broadband providers to discriminate unilaterally against some categories of users or types of traffic or to accord preferential treatment to certain content providers over others, all under the ambiguous claim of 'network management'."

The issue, Pruitt concluded, "is not whether government should regulate the Internet but whether there will be effective oversight to prevent a handful of corporate giants from imposing their own version of private regulation to the public's detriment." Pruitt denounced Comcast's recent behavior as an excuse for "private vigilantism to the detriment of legitimate users and innovative service providers."

Second showdown in Palo Alto



On April 17, Stanford University will host the FCC's next hearing on how the Commission should oversee ISP handling of peer-to-peer protocols. Yesterday's announcement comes a little over a week after the agency's chair Kevin Martin spoke at the campus and told an audience that he hopes to complete his investigation of the controversy over Comcast's ISP practices by June. The FCC has not disclosed the key participants in the event—a follow up to the agency's February 25 hearing at Harvard Law School. But the press release says the Commission will hear from "expert panelists regarding broadband network management practices and Internet-related issues."

No more telco apartment building monopolies

Meanwhile there's some good news for broadband-seeking apartment dwellers. Last November, the FCC banned exclusive deals for cable or satellite video services in apartment buildings. Now the Commission has extended that policy to telecommunications services. "Exclusive contracts have blocked access by consumers to competitive and popular 'triple-play' offerings of voice, video and broadband," the Commission says. "Opening the door to competitive telecommunications services will help provide consumers with increased access to and choice of such providers."

The move gives multiple unit tenants the same options as homeowners, although the announcement doesn't say when the new rules will begin. "Today’s order provides regulatory parity between telecommunications and video service providers in the increasingly competitive market for bundled services," the FCC's March 19th Order concludes.