Senate Net Neutrality Hearing Recap

Benton Foundation, April 23, 2008

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and others testified before the Senate Commerce Committee Tuesday. Chairman Martin fought a bit with lawmakers over whether the FCC has the authority to punish Comcast over charges that it blocks certain kinds of Internet traffic — a practice Chairman Martin said is more widespread than the company had previously acknowledged.

Martin said Comcast’s blocking of BitTorrent peer-to-peer traffic appeared to happen when there wasn’t network congestion, in contrast to claims from the broadband provider. Comcast’s actions, first described by the Associated Press last October, appeared to “block uploads of a significant portion of subscribers” in that part of the network, even during times when the network wasn’t congested, Martin said.

Chairman Martin resisted calls by Democratic members of the committee to pass a network neutrality law, saying the FCC now has the authority to act on network blocking complaints on a case-by-case basis. The FCC in 2005 adopted a set of open Internet policy principles, and it has responded to traffic-blocking complaints, Martin said.

Sen John Kerry (D-MA) is concerned the FCC may face lawsuits if it enforces its Network Neutrality principles without new legislation from Congress. Senate Republicans voiced opposition to new legislation, with Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) saying that “intense regulation” of the Internet would be “entirely unwarranted.”

Links to testimony/statements

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii): http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Statemen…

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-281690A1.doc

Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1533

Professor Lawrence Lessig: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/LessigTestimony.pdf

Michele Combs, Christian Coalition of America: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/ChristianCoalitionStatementfortheSenateCommitteeonCommerceFinal.pdf

Patric Verrone, Writers Guild of America, West: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/Pverronetestimonysenatecommerce422.pdf

Justine Bateman, Actor / Writer / Producer: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/jbatemantestimonysenatecommerce422.pd

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