BACKGROUND

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce this week whether he'll fulfill President Obama's promise to protect the open Internet and Net Neutrality. And the New York Times reported last night [Read more]:

Level 3 Communications, a central partner in the Netflix online movie service, accused Comcast on Monday of charging a new fee that puts Internet video companies at a competitive disadvantage.

Level 3, which helps to deliver Netflix’s streaming movies, said Comcast had effectively erected a tollbooth that “threatens the open Internet,” and indicated that it would seek government intervention...

The dispute highlighted the growing importance of Internet video delivery — an area that some people say needs to be monitored more closely by regulators.

Net neutrality, which posits that Internet traffic should be free of any interference from network operators like Comcast, is thought to be on the December agenda of the Federal Communications Commission.

“With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a ‘closed’ Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content,” Thomas C. Stortz, the chief legal officer for Level 3, said in a statement Monday...

...under pressure from Comcast, “Level 3 agreed to the terms, under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions,” Mr. Stortz said...Mr. Stortz implied that Comcast was taking the action to impair companies that compete with its own cable and Internet services.

...On Monday night, public interest groups that have steadfastly opposed the combination of Comcast and NBC Universal argued that the Level 3 case proved that Comcast would discriminate against competitors if it could.

“On its face, this is the sort of toll booth between residential subscribers and the content of their choice that a net neutrality rule is supposed to prohibit,” said Harold Feld, legal director of one such group, Public Knowledge, in a statement.