The Federal Trade Commission today dealt a serious blow to "Net Neutrality" proponents as it issued a report dismissive of claims that the government needs to get involved in preserving the fairness of networks in the United States.

The report, entitled "Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy," was drafted in response to growing concerns about broadband competitiveness and network neutrality. The FTC intends the report to be consulted as a guideline by policy makers and legislators, but it has no binding force. Nevertheless, the report's findings are yet another sign that US government agencies are not particularly interested in the network neutrality problem right now. In fact, the FTC is essentially saying that they can find no evidence of a problem to begin with.

In a statement, Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said, "This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more - not less - competition. In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area."

The "hands-off" approach is the approach preferred by the telecoms, who will also be delighted that Chairman Majoras cleared them of any wrong-doing in their network management so far. Nevertheless, the FTC says that it will continue to monitor the situation, as will the FCC and DOJ. Perhaps more encouraging for proponents of such legislation, the FTC says that increased awareness of the debate will help them with monitoring the need for government regulation.

"As a byproduct of the ongoing debate over network neutrality regulation, the agencies have a heightened awareness of the potential consumer harms from certain conduct by, and business arrangements involving, broadband providers," the report states. "Perhaps equally important, many consumers are now aware of such issues. Consumers—particularly online consumers—have a powerful collective voice. In the area of broadband Internet access, they have revealed a strong preference for the current open access to Internet content and applications."

Indeed, while this appears to be another victory for the opponents of net neutrality, the language of the report suggests that should something more fishy arise, the FTC will be watching. In particular, the report says that the FTC will be watching a set of particular questions closely:

How much demand will there be from content and applications providers for data prioritization? Will effective data prioritization, throughout the many networks comprising the Internet, be feasible? Would allowing broadband providers to practice data prioritization necessarily result in the degradation of non-prioritized data delivery? When will the capacity limitations of the networks comprising the Internet result in unmanageable or unacceptable levels of congestion? If that point is reached, what will be the most efficient response thereto: data prioritization, capacity increases, a combination of these, or some as yet unknown technological innovation?

As you can see, these are all very fundamental questions, and indeed the answer to all of them involves a giant helping of "wait and see."

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