The FCC’s net neutrality proposal demonstrates that the...

The FCC’s net neutrality proposal demonstrates that the FCC is acting with dispatch in reaction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s Jan. 14 decision (CD Jan 15 p1) largely rejecting the agency’s 2010 net neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said during a press conference following the commission’s monthly meeting. “First of all, this is a month after the decision,” Wheeler said. “There’s going to be a rulemaking in the spring. I don’t think we kicked the can, I think we picked it up and we're running down the road in the direction the court suggested we ought to be going.” Wheeler was asked about his statement that he would leave the Title II docket open (CD Feb 20 p1). “There are all kinds of tools in the toolbox,” he said. “What we're doing is we're adding, not subtracting, to what’s in that toolbox.” The agency favors broadband competition, he said. “When Google comes in and says that they're going to build more fiber, that’s a great idea,” he said. Wheeler said the commission is looking at the “right structure” for encouraging the buildout of more municipal broadband. “The operating hypothesis is that if the citizens of a community say we would like to have more competition and we want to work through our local elected officials to have that competition they should be encouraged, not thwarted.” Wheeler also confirmed background statements coming from agency officials that he is “skeptical” about a possible Sprint/T-Mobile deal, but he declined to say more. “I think that has been reported in the press, that both the Department of Justice and we indicated that we were skeptical about the proposed transaction, and that’s the extent of my willingness to comment on that situation,” he said.