Consumer Groups Challenge FCC Cable Ruling

Consumer advocacy groups filed an appeal Monday to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission decision to designate cable Internet services as an "information service," a ruling that could keep the government from requiring cable companies to open lines to competition.

The challenge, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is intended to prevent cable companies from being able to lock out Internet content that might compete with television programming or online content, and it also seeks to promote local competition for Internet services, says Cheryl Leanza, deputy director of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit telecommunication watchdog group in Washington.

"The Internet as we have it now is a wide-open medium," she says. Well-heeled cable companies want it to become "a walled garden that keeps individuals in their passive role as consumers."

The FCC defined cable Internet services as an "information service" earlier in March, largely taking them out of the regulatory realm of cable television service. The rules for information services are still being formed, and only Digital Subscriber Line services offered by phone companies have been similarly designated as an information service, in a tentative ruling in February.

Local phone companies must share facilities with competitors if they want to be able to offer long distance services. The line-sharing rule exists to ensure competition with local incumbents, which usually have an overwhelming majority of the customers in an area and for years had local phone service monopolies. Cable television companies also often have local service monopolies, but don't have the same open access requirements for television services.

The challenge to the FCC ruling seeks to force open access for cable Internet services in the same way that phone companies are required to open their networks.

It is possible, however, that the result of a court battle could be the opposite of the intent of the consumer groups that filed the challenge. A court seeking to apply the same rules to cable Internet services and high-speed Internet services over phone lines could strike down open access requirements for phone companies that want to offer Internet services.

"The underlying legal analysis could be applied to telephone Internet services," Leanza concedes.

The Media Access Project filed the challenge on behalf of Consumers Union, the organization that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, as well as the Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Digital Democracy. Earthlink and Verizon Communications also have challenged the FCC ruling.