Achieving Network Neutrality: Maintaining Competition Between Content and Application Providers

On 1 August 2008, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a controversial order against Comcast, a cable network operator and content distributor and the second largest provider of broadband internet access in the United States, finding it had violated the FCCs policy of "network neutralit" by deliberately interfering with the ability of its customers to use BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer applications which permit the sharing of video and other large data files. Network neutrality is a concept with many variations, but which has generally come to mean that broadband access providers must ensure that their subscribers are free, of their own choosing, to access internet content and services, run related applications and connect devices to the internet. Regardless of the merits of the FCC's network neutrality policy, which are themselves debatable, the basis of the 3:2 decision of the FCC commissioners rests on untested and questionable legal ground. The order also has a number of evidentiary weaknesses and raises broader policy issues concerning internet regulation, the latter of which are of interest to Australian policymakers as the government considers the appropriate regulatory framework for the national broadband network.