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Will Net Neutrality be FCC’s Early Christmas Present?

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Image: Stephen Orsillo, porhomme.com

The Federal Communications Commission will likely take up the hot-button issue of net neutrality at its December meeting.

Politico reports the meeting, scheduled for Dec. 15, has been pushed back a week to possibly provide more time to consider the agency’s next move on the issue, which would set regulations on treating all Internet content equally.

Politico is reading the tea leaves in FCC’s decision to delay its meeting. If FCC had kept the original date, following customary practice, would have had to release an agenda of the meeting by today,” just as lawmakers and tech leaders [depart] Washington for Thanksgiving,” Politico reports.

But FCC is keeping relatively mum on why it postponed the meeting. “An extra week will help us evaluate potential agenda items for December,” an FCC spokeswoman told Politico.

Earlier this week, FierceWireless reported that industry insiders predicted action by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski by the end of the year.

And, Genachowski has said as much himself. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, he said FCC action on net neutrality “will happen,” according to FierceWireless.

“We will make sure that we get the rules right,” he added. “We need to make sure that what we do maximizes innovation and investment across the ecosystem.”

Meanwhile House Republicans are vocal in their demand that FCC not deliver an early Christmas present in the form of net neutrality this year.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a contender for a top spot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said FCC should wait for the new Congress, which includes a majority of Republicans, to be sworn in before taking action on net neutrality. Anything else would “poison the well,” he said, according to a report on The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire.

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