FCC Schedules Broadband Hearing at Stanford University
Hearing to influence timetable for handling complaint against Comcast.
By: Justin Bourne
Posted: 03/20/2008
WASHINGTON
- Though
Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Kevin Martin recently said he wouldn't schedule a second
network-management hearing at Stanford
University, the agency has
reconsidered.
The FCC said on Wednesday that it will hold a field hearing on April 17 on
Stanford's campus in Palo Alto,
Calif. The FCC has not stated a
time for the hearing or who will speak.
During the first field hearing, which was held in February in Cambridge, Mass., five
commissioners allowed representatives from Comcast,
BitTorrent and Verizon to
speak on the subject, alongside scholars from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Harvard
Law School.
The FCC said the second hearing will cover issues similar to those raised in
the first hearing, including "reasonable" network management by Internet
service providers.
Martin said a recent discussion with Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessing
convinced him that a second hearing would be beneficial.
Martin said the hearing would influence the FCC's timetable for acting on a
pending complaint against Comcast's network management practices. He said he
hoped action would occur by the end of the second quarter of this year.
The hearing will open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Seats
are expected to go quickly, as they did at the Massachusetts hearing, where Comcast hired
attendees.
The FCC is accepting comments on broadband network management practices
through its website.
