FCC Chief Martin hopes Comcast sanction serves as warning

A recommendation to punish Comcast for blocking subscribers' Internet traffic should serve as a warning to other service providers, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said Friday. He hopes his action will make network operators sensitive about putting "arbitrary limits on the way consumers can access information on the Internet." Chairman Martin wants Comcast to stop using its current practice, to tell commissioners where it has used it in the past, and to disclose to the agency and consumers what limitations will be placed on customers under its new traffic management plan, which it hopes to have in place by the end of the year. He said he is not recommending a fine against Comcast because he wants to use the case as a means of laying out FCC policy. "It doesn't make the enforcement action less important," he said. "Oftentimes (what is) most important is to try to clarify what is allowed and what isn't." Chairman Martin circulated an order recommending the enforcement action among his fellow commissioners on Friday. The measure is scheduled for a vote at the agency's next open meeting, scheduled for August 1. "We believe the order, which we think will be favored by an FCC majority, will be negative for Comcast and set some precedents that could trouble other cable and even telecom broadband providers," analysts Blair Levin and Rebecca Arbogast wrote in a report for investment banking firm Stifel Nicolaus.