FCC wants Comcast and Time Warner to file more paperwork with details on their pending takeover plan for Adelphia, according to The Wall Street Journal. The details FCC needs are pretty elaborate and many of them justified. However, this little bit caught my eye…
The FCC’s information request also focuses on several delicate areas, including agreements for regional sports programming and “net neutrality” rights — essentially preventing companies from discriminating against Internet traffic. The latter request is notable because FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wasn’t particularly concerned about net neutrality in two recent Bell mergers.
Does anyone else see this as FCC’s double standard?
I think the Bells promised to maintain status quo for two years or so. After that all bets are off. King Ed would have some fun after that I guess.
Not a double standard. The issue of net neutrality only exists in the last mile where the link is controlled by few players. The two mergers you talk about, AT&T/SBC and Verizon/MCI I assume, didn’t involve acquiring assets that serve the last mile consumer. Adelphia is a last mile player, hence the FCC’s interest. You would expect to see the same thing if/when Bellsouth is courted by Verizon or SBC.
Perhaps it’s not a double-standard. Perhaps it’s an awakening.
Any change in policy is going to have a line, before which they had not applied it and after which they had. Those under the new policy may cry foul, but it doesn’t mean that the policy was aimed at them, just that it was formed at an inconvenient time for them.
It could be a double-standard, too, of course. It’s just that I happen to like the idea of net neutrality being codified beyond “trust us.”