Law Commons^™

The Fcc And The “Pre-Internet”, John Blevins

Indiana Law Journal

Network neutrality has dominated broadband policy debates for the past decade. While important, network neutrality overshadows other policy levers that are equally important to the goals of better, cheaper, and more open broadband service. This lack of perspective has historical precedent—and understanding this history can help refocus today’s policy debate. In the 1960s and 1970s, telephone companies threatened the growth of the nascent data industry. The FCC responded with a series of rulemakings known as the “Computer Inquiries” proceedings. In the literature, Computer Inquiries enjoys hallowed status as a key foundation of the Internet’s rise.

This Article, however, argues that …

Wireless Network Neutrality: Technological Challenges And Policy Implications, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

One key aspect of the debate over network neutrality has been whether and how network neutrality should apply to wireless networks. The existing commentary has focused on the economics of wireless network neutrality, but to date a detailed analysis of how the technical aspects of wireless networks affect the implementation of network neutrality has yet to appear in the literature. As an initial matter, bad handoffs, local congestion, and the physics of wave propagation make wireless broadband networks significantly less reliable than fixed broadband networks. These technical differences require the network to manage dropped packets and congestion in a way …