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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Timothy Karr: 201-533-8838,,tkarr@freepress.net

FCC Action Is First Step Toward Achieving Broadband Goals

‘Third Way’ is a measured response to the Comcast lawsuit

WASHINGTON

Tomorrow, the Federal Communications
Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry that will ask for public
comment on the best legal framework for carrying out the agency's
National Broadband Plan to bring fast, open and affordable Internet
access to all Americans.

Aparna Sridhar, Free Press policy counsel,
made the following statement:

"There is broad agreement that without clarifying its
authority over broadband, the Commission cannot implement the National
Broadband Plan and connect rural and low-income communities to the
Internet.

"Tomorrow's FCC action begins a process of open discussion
about how to achieve our nation's broadband goals in a legally
sustainable way. Based on their overheated rhetoric, the phone and cable
companies would seem to prefer to keep the broken legal framework
adopted by the Bush-era FCC rather than consider whether better, sounder
options exist. Objecting to merely asking these questions is absurd."

"Moreover, the FCC's Third Way proposal presents a measured
response to a problem created by a Comcast lawsuit: Without restoring
its authority over broadband, the Commission won't be able to bring
broadband to rural and low-income Americans or promote policies that
encourage innovation, creativity, free speech and job creation online.
These are goals that we can all agree on, and we support the
Commission's effort to achieve them by first establishing a sound legal
foundation for its policies."

For more information, see the Free Press issue brief:
https://www.freepress.net/resource/truth-about-third-way-separating-fact-fiction-fcc-reclassification-debate

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