FCC Moves Toward "Public Utility" Regulation of Broadband

Public Utilities do some things quite well. But innovation is not one of them. And that's the problem with common carrier regulation: it often results in good quality for basic services, but with high prices and very-low innovation beyond the basic service.

Electricity, water, natural gas, and until recently local telephone and cable services were usually classified as public utilities and regulated by government. Now, however, the Federal Communications Commission wants to classify the decentralized Internet as a public utility, as FCC chair Julius Genachowski tries to get around a Supreme Court ruling blocking his Net Neutrality ambitions.

FCC takes first step towards making the Internet a “public utility”