CommLaw Conspectus: Journal of Communications Law and Policy

As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, we find ourselves at a rare historical moment—a time of great opportunity fraught with substantial pitfalls. Numerous potential trajectories of the Internet may unfold before us. While decentralized and participatory platforms have birthed a revived movement for democratized media production, these phenomena depend on the common resource of the Internet; common not in ownership of the integrated networks, but in non-discriminatory access and use of the network.

The investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) of Comcast’s network management practices regarding traffic from BitTorrent applications prompted an intense debate regarding the extent to which Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can manage traffic over their networks.¹ Although the Commission found that Comcast’s interference with BitTorrent was unreasonable, it declined to prescribe specific rules or guidelines for reasonable network management practices or prohibit ISPs from engaging in practices that discriminate against particular Internet