Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will hold a public hearing later this month on broadband network management practices, in the wake of an admission from Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) that it actively interferes with the peer-to-peer application usage of some of its customers. Responding to an FCC inquiry, which came after investigations by independent researchers and the Associated Press found that Comcast was throttling the BitTorrent uploads of some users, the company conceded in a filing with the FCC that it "manages the use of certain P2P protocols in a minimally intrusive way, and only when necessary, based on purely objective criteria."

Meanwhile, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunication and the Internet, yesterday introduced a bill that would require the FCC to "adopt and enforce baseline protections to guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership or destination on the Internet."

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act (H.R. 5353) is co-sponsored by Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS).

"The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered," Markey said in a statement.

Advocates for the concept of Net neutrality, including Public Knowledge and Free Press, applauded the bill's introduction, while the Hands Off the Internet coalition -- whose members include telecommunications firms and the American Conservative Union -- said that federal regulation of the Internet "undercuts the best hope Net users have for faster, more affordable broadband."

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2ppfow (PDF: FCC announcement)

http://tinyurl.com/2c9ma4 (Rep. Markey announcement)

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980868.html

http://tinyurl.com/3c6frs (The Register)

http://www.handsoff.org/blog