FCC Authority Post-Comcast: Finding a Happy Medium in the Net Neutrality Debate‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION With over 1.7 billion users, the Internet is an indispensable medium, and its increasing speed and ease of access encourage consumer demand. (1) To date, the Internet's success story evolved free from complex government regulation. (2) However, as the market for Internet service changes and Internet traffic increases, a growing number of consumers, scholars, and politicians fear that Internet service providers (IsPs) will alter the accessible, open, and neutral platform upon which the Internet was founded. (3) Today, the future of the Internet and its historically open nature is the issue of a hotly contested debate known as net neutrality, the concept that all web content should be treated equally. (4) Proponents and opponents of net neutrality are at odds over whether the government, via the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), should establish a regulatory regime to monitor ISPs' network management practices. (5)