The Internet's Future is Now

[Commentary] So 2014 will pass into history without the Federal Communications Commission stepping up to the plate to ensure an Open Internet. Think of the good history the Commission could have made for itself. Instead we got more delay and more uncertainty about whether Title II net neutrality will ever see the light of day. The hoped-for scenario now is that progress will come at the January 2015 FCC monthly meeting. Perhaps, even as you read this, the Commission is reworking its notably deficient and wildly unpopular proposal from earlier this year. There is no reason for this process -- if indeed this is the process now -- to take long. The agency is expert on every aspect of telecommunication law; it has been amassing a comprehensive Title I/Title II/Section 706 record for more than a dozen years; and there are no new arguments to be made that haven’t been made many times before. Time is not the friend of the Open Internet.