A bipartisan majority of the Federal Communications Commission has reportedly voted to punish Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, for blocking consumers' access to the open Internet.
According to press reports, Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have voted with Chairman Kevin Martin for an "enforcement order" that would require Comcast to stop blocking and publicly disclose its network management practices. The order is adopted once all five commissioners have cast their votes.
Our friends at the FCC, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, helped form part of a 3-2 majority to punish Comcast. The FCC is a regulatory body run by 5 commissioners, 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Like many agencies, the party that holds the White House holds the majority on the FCC. Kevin Martin, the Republican chair, voted with us on this one because he is terrified of Ed Markey, Congressional oversight, and the millions of people watching him.
It's a significant precedent for this body to punish a large corporation. The FCC just does't do that, if you know what I mean. And the commission did it under Republican leadership, so just wait until there's a Democrat in the White House, one who is actually with us on a universal internet.
I've spent a bunch of time bashing telephone companies over net neutrality, wiretapping, and just generally being horrible control freaks. Cable companies though are just as unethical and bent on controlling access to content. Harold Feld is bringing word that the FCC is about to rule on regulating cable monopolies to force them to include more independent and minority-owned stations.
The agency is also preparing to adopt a rule this month that would make it easier for independent programmers, which are often small operations, to lease access to cable channels.
And Mr. Martin has been circulating a plan that would use the finding on cable television dominance to set a cap on the size of the nation's largest cable companies so that no company could control more than 30 percent of the market.
When cable was deregulated in 1984, few believed it would become the dominant way that Americans would receive video. In case it did, to prevent cable from having ridiculous market power, Congress wrote that if 70% of Americans subscribed to cable, the FCC would regulate cable in the name of diversity. Cable is fighting tooth and nail, with both anti-regulatory arguments and disputes over the number of Americans who have cable (though of course they won't release numbers of their own subscribers).
It's a complete bad faith assault from the cable industry so Time Warner and Comcast can get bigger and control more content.
The politics here are interesting, and winnable. FCC Commissioners Kevin Martin and Michael Copps want to regulate the industry, but Democrat Jonathan Adelstein and Republican Deborah Tate are unsure, and Robert McDowell is opposed. This is the single best opportunity to break up the power of the cable companies and get more progressive content on TV.
I'll be watching to see how Adelstein votes. FCC politics is byzantine, but it's not always partisan and the amount of power they wield over the information channels Americans have is simply immense.
