FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler testifying before the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee. (credit: House Energy and Commerce Committee)
Legislation that would ban rate regulation of Internet service providers could prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing net neutrality rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, according to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Although the FCC decided not to regulate the monthly prices charged by broadband providers, the commission's net neutrality rules rely partially on rate-oversight authority over common carriers. The relevant sections of the Communications Act say that the prices charged by common carriers have to be just and reasonable; those sections also ban "unreasonable discrimination" in charges and practices.
This rate-oversight power, along with other authority, was used by the FCC to justify the three so-called "bright-line" rules that prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. That's why the Republican-sponsored "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act" could threaten the FCC's core net neutrality rules, Wheeler told lawmakers in a letter dated March 14 and posted on the FCC's website last week.
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