FCC chairman Julius Genachowski is extending net neutrality rules to wireless devices. (Harry Hamburg/Associated Press)
The United States is moving toward enshrining a free and open internet with six proposed rules designed to prevent telecommunications companies from interfering with how people use their connections.
The rules are needed because American internet providers have interfered with internet traffic on a number of occasions and they must be prevented from doing so in the future, said Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The principles
Two new principles will join those original four and be formalized as official rules that will apply to both wired and wireless networks:
• Consumers are entitled to access whatever lawful internet content they want.
• Consumers are entitled to run whatever applications and services they want, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
• Consumers can connect to networks whatever legal devices they want, so long as they do not harm them.
• Consumers are entitled to competition between networks, applications, services and content providers.
• Service providers are not allowed to discriminate between applications, services and content outside of reasonable network management.
• Service providers must be transparent about the network management practices they use.