Following the recent approval from the House Energy and Commerce committee a new program designed to expand the availability of broadband has now moved forward in Congress. These new measures also include the principles of net neutrality, which is a big win for groups advocating broadband.
Calls for any companies that build out wireless and broadband networks to be provided with grants of up to $2.85 billion by the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration have been made by the program, which is a part of the $6 billion broadband package proposal. This proposal is a single part of the whole proposed $825 billion economic stimulus package.
In a recent statement Henry Waxman the committee chair Rep said “Broadband investments are important because they have a tremendous multiplier effect on our economy.”
Adherence by grant recipients to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2005 broadband policy statement, which lays down the principles of net neutrality, has been specified in the bill. Consumers are entitled to run application their own choice of applications, connect any devices considered legal that do not cause harm to the network, and access all content deemed as lawful, said the FCC in this statement.
The binding of these principles on Internet Service Providers is the position that the FCC currently take. When Comcast violated the policy statement last year by slowing peer-to-peer traffic they were sanctioned by the agency, although Comcast are appealing the ruling by the FCC and is arguing that because they are neither regulations nor laws the principles were never legally binding.
The incorporation of the standards in the new package by lawmakers were applauded by digital rights groups and the research director of Free Press, Derek Turner said “We’re very pleased that Energy and Commerce moved quickly to get this bill through and that they left in the ‘open Internet’ requirement.”
Of the grant money offered recently underserved portions of the country would be given seventy five percent of the grant, whilst areas without any kind of broadband at all will get 25 percent.