Comcast Says FCC Has No Authority To Stop Traffic Shaping
Date : 03 20 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
This probably won't come as much of a surprise, but Comcast is now suggesting that the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate its traffic shaping activities. This comes in response to Kevin Martin suggesting that the FCC would rule against Comcast for traffic shaping (which seemed odd enough, considering that Martin was perfectly fine with AT&T traffic shaping). Comcast is already suing the FCC over its telco favoritism, so this might just be one more thing to toss on the pile.
It's tough to know who to favor in this situation -- but Comcast may be technically correct that this extends beyond the FCC's authority. Still, it might not be good policy for the company to say so, considering the efforts being made to put in place net neutrality legislation. If supporters of this legislation notice what Comcast is saying, it might just explicitly add language to the bill to give the FCC the authority that Comcast now says it doesn't have. So, even if Comcast is right, saying so out loud may not have been the wisest move at this juncture.
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It's tough to know who to favor in this situation -- but Comcast may be technically correct that this extends beyond the FCC's authority. Still, it might not be good policy for the company to say so, considering the efforts being made to put in place net neutrality legislation. If supporters of this legislation notice what Comcast is saying, it might just explicitly add language to the bill to give the FCC the authority that Comcast now says it doesn't have. So, even if Comcast is right, saying so out loud may not have been the wisest move at this juncture.
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