No Slam Dunk for Net Neutrality (with apologies to George Tenet)

TPMCafe

It’s getting down to the end of this Congressional session, and any number of commentators are bemoaning the fact that telecom legislation has been stuffed, in large part, due to the opposition of those favoring Net Neutrality.

That’s fine. The bills that were up for consideration this year had some good things, but tremendous flaws as well, and shouldn’t have been considered in a hurry. At the same time, though, we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions about how the issue will play out next year, when the Democrats take over Congress. Some people are saying the Bell companies won’t want to pursue telecom legislation because they will work through the states to get what they want. Others are saying that Net Neutrality, the idea that telephone and cable companies can’t make special deals to favor transmission of some content over other content, will have a great chance next year with the Democrats in charge.

The best prediction is somewhere in the middle, in part because some of the factors involved aren’t yet known and in part because some of the old politics is still in play. In full.