What do you think? Is Congress a good addition to the mix? Does the FCC need to be curbed?

I find the recent federal appeals court decision involving the FCC and Comcast really fascinating, and maybe more interesting than the intricacies of RespOrg issues to some of you.  In case you haven’t been following this, the FCC had ordered Comcast to limit peer-to-peer traffic in order to control bandwidth sucking applications.  Comcast took the decision to court on the basis that the FCC had no right to dictate how a carrier handled their traffic – and they won.   The court ruled that the FCC has no right to tell ISPs how to manage their networks and overturned the FCC’s 2008 order.

That decision has thrown the FCC, the legislature, and the industry into the next round of debates on net neutrality, but even broader, where does the FCC’s power start and stop.  The court has now told the FCC it can’t enforce net neutrality, but to make matters worse (or better depending on your opinion) Congress is saying that it is time that they review the FCC’s reach.  This really makes the telcos lobbyists smile.  AT&T’s Jim Ciccone commented: “Questions about the FCC’s legal authority should be decided by the Congress itself and not by applying to the Internet a set of onerous rules designed for a different technology, a different situation and a different era.”

What do you think?