FCC: Court ruling won't hang up rural broadband

Last week, we reported a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the Federal Communications Commission doesn't have the power to require companies adhere to "net neutral" Internet policies. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told a Congressional panel Wednesday the ruling "should not prevent it from carrying out its plan to broadly expand the country’s high-speed Internet service," Edward Wyatt of The New York Times reports. The chairman left the door open for an FCC move to classify the Internet a utility so it would have similar oversight control as it has with phone service.

The commission said it would not appeal the decision, because it thought it could still accomplish its rural broadband goals even after the ruling. Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns disagreed, telling Genachowski that he thought the ruling was "very specific in saying you don’t have the authority" to enforce equal-access standards. A reclassification of the Internet as a utility would reverse the FCC's previous decision to label it as a communications service during the Bush administration. (Read more)