Kerry: FCC has 'rationale' to consider broadband re-classification

By Administrator - 04/06/10 02:05 PM ET

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday stressed the FCC would be within its legal bounds to reclassify broadband in a way that it can begin regulating it, though he quickly noted he was not yet "advocating that" kind of change.

A federal appeals court ruled earlier in the day that the FCC has only limited powers to regulate broadband providers, as high-speed Internet is a "Title I" service over which it does not have jurisdiction.

But Kerry said Tuesday the FCC would have a "strong rationale" for revising those rules to reflect broadband as a "Title II" service, which the agency can regulate. The senator later suggested he could introduce legislation that would clear up the nation's ambiguous broadband oversight rules.

“This is a history-making decision. It appears to vacate the authority of the FCC to conduct oversight over broadband service and the telephone and cable giants that own the wires,” Kerry, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, said of the court's 3-0 decision in favor of Comcast.

“I am not advocating that the FCC reclassify broadband services as a result of this decision, but I absolutely believe they maintain that legal authority and it would be entirely consistent with the history of communications law in our country if they did," he said.

The FCC has already hinted it is considering such a change in its rules, stressing in a statement released earlier Tuesday that the court's 3-0 decision in favor of Comcast "did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end.”

But doing so would surely invoke the ire of the country's top telecommunications firms, including Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Verizon and AT&T, at least, have already promised to fight re-classification efforts in court. Comcast, meanwhile, has already demonstrated its willingness to challenge the FCC's authority in the broadband realm.

Kerry seemed to predict that brewing battle in his statement on Tuesday. But while he did not take a side in the re-classification fight, he did signal support for new rules that would empower the FCC to regulate broadband services.

According to Kerry, who was a member of the Senate Commerce Committee when it debated the telecommunications law that now guides the FCC, lawmakers did not intend for "cable and telephone broadband internet service providers to fall outside of the authority of the FCC..."

He consequently suggested legislation "a new legal and regulatory framework for broadband, especially if reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service proves too difficult to administer."

"I am willing to work with all interested parties on the construction of that framework," the senator later noted.