FCC Decision About Net Neutrality Unlikely This Year

MediaPost reported:

"... it looks like the Federal Communications Commission will put off a decision on net neutrality until at least next year. The agency's tentative agenda for its Dec. 11 meeting, released this afternoon, doesn't include a vote on open Internet rules."

Reportedly, the reason for the postponement:

"... after President Barack Obama publicly urged the FCC to reclassify broadband as a utility service, Wheeler indicated the agency would need additional time to consider the legal questions posed by reclassifying broadband. “The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do,” Wheeler said..."

The FCC could change its December 11 meeting agenda. If it doesn't, then the next time it could vote about net neutrality would be at its January 29, 2015 meeting.

Comments

[Chanson de Roland]

The real reason for the delay is more likely that the Congress will be in Republicans' hands by 29 January 2015, so that that Republican Congress will be in place to support Wheeler's efforts to destroy net neutrality. If net neutrality hangs on at all, and I don't expect that it will, it will hang by the slender thread of Obama's veto and Wheeler's attempt to minimize the political damage of having to vote with Republicans to destroy net neutrality.

Also, with the Republicans in power, future nominees to the FCC' Commission will only be confirmed with Republican consent, which guarantees that those nominees will be against net neutrality.

So Wheeler is lining up his forces for the final battle, which requires a delay until the new Republican Congress takes office.