(credit: Getty Images | Martin Hospach)
The Federal Communications Commission today proposed new price regulations for so-called “business data services,” potentially bringing Comcast and other cable companies under a type of regulatory regime that already applied to phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon.
The price rules won’t extend to home Internet or the typical broadband service that companies buy to get their employees online. Instead, this form of data connectivity—also called “special access”—is sometimes thought of as the Internet equivalent of a barrel of oil.
Even if you don’t know what a barrel of oil costs, its price affects how much you pay for gas. Similarly, special access prices can affect what ordinary consumers pay for mobile broadband. Wireless carriers buy special access to supply bandwidth for their cellular data networks, so the prices charged can indirectly affect the monthly bills paid by smartphone users.
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