Big changes are coming to the FCC. President-elect Donald Trump's positions on net neutrality and telecom monopolies stands in stark opposition to those of President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. So it's no surprise that, with Republicans poised to take over the FCC, the Republican party is telling the current lame duck administration to cool it with those set-top box rules and all that net neutrality stuff.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the chairs of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee have requested that the FCC stop moving forward with major issues. The FCC should shelve “complex and controversial items that the new Congress and Administration will have an interest in reviewing,” the congressmen wrote – in other words, don't pass anything that a Trump-led government will just overturn.

This isn't just the Republicans being mean to the current FCC. There's a precedent for sitting on controversial measures during the lame duck period – in fact, current chairman Tom Wheeler was part of the Obama tech transition team when House Democrats petitioned then-FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who agreed to kill a vote.

If Wheeler makes the same concession, then the set-top box rules will not get a vote in the lame duck session. And it's likely that whatever rules do pass under a Republican-led FCC will look different. So too will net neutrality regulations, which do not enjoy the same support among Republicans that they do among Democrats.