Telecom Warily Waits on 'Wired' President

President-elect Barack Obama famously made the Web a pillar of his campaign, so it is not surprising that the man called the nation's first "wired" president has championed the idea of an open Internet. And that is what Sprint Nextel chief executive Dan Hesse said recently "should scare" the telecom industry the most. Republican lawmakers and technology regulators have fought the idea of an open Internet, or net neutrality, calling it a "solution in search of a problem." But it is widely expected that Obama will make net neutrality and access to broadband in rural and poor areas a key part of his agenda to close economic divides and help spur job creation. The task of translating net neutrality -- the notion put forth by academics that network operators should be banned from slowing, blocking or degrading Internet content and technologies -- could likely fall under the Federal Communications Commission, business leaders and analysts said.