FCC Chairman confirms utility-style rules to enforce Net neutrality - CNET

The new rules would prohibit speeding up, slowing down or blocking broadband Internet traffic, under a rule that dates back to the early days of the telephone business.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is ready to shake up the Internet.

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the FCC, will reclassify broadband as a utility to protect the open Internet.CNET/Marguerite Reardon

Wheeler confirmed on Wednesday that the final rules he is proposing for Net neutrality will include regulating wired and wireless broadband services under utility-style rules based on Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

Title II has the potential to radically change how the Internet is governed, giving the FCC unprecedented authority over the Internet. The provision originally gave the FCC the power to set rates and enforce the common carrier principle, or the idea that every customer is treated fairly, on telephone service. Wheeler hopes to apply that principle to Internet traffic, ensuring that the broadband providers can't favor one bit of data over another.

In an op-ed published on Wired.com, Wheeler said that the new rules will ban paid prioritization, plus reinstate rules that had been part of the previous open Internet regulation, such as banning an Internet service provider from blocking traffic and a ban on allowing Internet service providers to slow down access to content on the Internet to favor their own services.

The proposal will face opposition, and likely legal challenges. The broadband industry, which includes telecom, mobile and cable providers, have argued that the more stringent rules will stifle network investment and strangle innovation. Michael Powell, a former Republican chairman of the FCC who is now CEO of lobbyist trade group the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, said in 2013 that any attempt to reclassify broadband under Title II amounts to "World War III."

Wheeler tried to allay fears of broadband providers. He said that the agency is proposing exempting broadband from certain provisions of the Title II regulation that he says do not make sense for the Internet.

"All of this can be accomplished while encouraging investment in broadband networks," he said in the op-ed. "To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks."

He said there would be no rate regulation, tariffs or last-mile unbundling. He pointed to the wireless industry as an example of how this could work effectively.

"Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition," he said.