Consumers should be given top priority The intensely competitive nature of the Internet is vital to the American economy and democracy. So, an editorial by the New York Times said it has become a source of worry that the rules proposed this month by Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to guarantee the Internet's openness may not be able to guarantee the survival of that competition. Excepts: Any new rules must prevent broadband service providers from foreclosing on competition. As proposed, the rules appear to come up short and have several weaknesses. For one thing, they forbid blocking Internet traffic or “unreasonable” discrimination against carrying some online content. But they do not ban the practice of paying to prioritize some Internet traffic over the rest. Only consumers should be allowed to pay to get faster, prioritized services. If corporations could pay for faster carriage of their content nothing would stop them from divvying up the broadband capacity, condemning less well-financed sources to move at a snail's pace. Fortunately, there is time to improve the proposal by Tuesday. It is virtually assured that the two Republican commissioners will vote against the rule. But the three Democratic commissioners should be able to close the gaps and protect open, competitive broadband. Understanding that they can't foresee every eventuality, we suggest that they keep open a Plan B in case their new guidelines don't do the job: the FCC should keep open its proceedings to redefine broadband as a telecom service. That's what it is. __
