President Obama Pushes for 'Net Neutrality'

President Obama is fighting Internet fast lanes. On Monday he waded into the debate over 'net neutrality' by suggesting Internet service should be regulated more heavily to protect consumers.

"We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas," President Obama said in a video announcement Monday.
 
The president is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to treat broadband like a public utility. He said the FCC should prohibit Internet providers like Verizon and AT&T from charging data hogs like Netflix extra to move their content more quickly. The announcement sent cable stocks tumbling.

The FCC, an independent regulatory body led by political appointees, is nearing a decision on whether broadband providers should be allowed to cut deals with the content providers, but it's stumbling over the legal complexities.

"We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme" regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry that supplies much of the nation's Internet access.

The Federal Communications Commission embraced the idea of net neutrality in a 2010 rule. But last January, a federal court knocked down that rule after it was challenged by Verizon. Since then, the FCC has been trying to figure out how it can enforce open Internet principles in a way that would survive any future legal challenges.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former industry lobbyist and venture capitalist, has said he is open to using a "hybrid" approach that would draw from both Title II of the 1934 law and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. On Monday, Wheeler said he welcomed the president's comments, but suggested his proposal was easier said than done.

"The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do," Wheeler said. "The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face."

The FCC isn't under a deadline to make a decision.