Kim Hart of Politico reports that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is pushing ahead with his Net Neutrality plans next month during the congressional lame duck session.  This is despite the objections of 282 lawmakers comprised of Democrats and Republicans before the 2010 midterm elections and that number will likely go up when Republicans take control of the House next year.  This is significant in light of the fact that the courts have always reined in on any FCC exerting power when there isn’t any explicit congressional authority granted to the FCC, even when there are congressional statements supporting the FCC.  With an unsupportive congress blasting the FCC’s power grab, the courts are certain to have a field day grilling the FCC if they attempt any unilateral action on Net Neutrality.

Hart reports that her sources are indicating that Genachowski and staff are also considering wireless regulations that may go as far as prohibiting wireless carriers form blocking applications, services, or devices.  This seems unwanted considering the fact that wireless services are very competitive with four physical carriers and multiple virtual carriers like Virgin Mobile and now Cox Communications offering wireless services.

Much of the rationale behind Net Neutrality is hinged on this mistaken idea that the carriers need to be regulated because they aren’t investing enough money in the networks.  Yet we know for a fact that network capacity is growing to support 30-fold to 50-fold increases in usage over three year periods and we know that AT&T will have invested around $36 billion in 2009 and 2010 to upgrade their wireless networks.  But even if we ignore the fact that the wireless carriers are investing tremendous amounts of money to upgrade capacity, it is an insane argument that passing Net Neutrality regulations to restrict carrier business models which restricts their revenue potential will somehow increase their willingness to invest.

It’s alarming to think that regulators might force carriers to carry network-destructive applications like BitTorrent or other streaming video services that force wireless networks to support video on demand when wireless networks won’t ever support video on demand effectively.  It’s alarming to think that regulators might make existing wireless business models like the Amazon Kindle e-book reader illegal because the Kindle blocks content, services, and attachment of additional devices.  It’s alarming to think that half-price single-device service plans might be made illegal because regulators and advocacy groups insist that full service wireless connectivity be the only permissible service plan.

Consumers should certainly have a right to buy full service plans, but they should also have the right to buy cheaper limited service plans and the government would only harm that ecosystem if they adopt blanket rules outlawing existing business models.

[Cross-posted at Digital Society]