美国互联网新规确认网络中立原则

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.

华盛顿——联邦通信委员会(Federal Communications Commission, FCC)周四投票决定，把宽带互联网作为一种公共事业来管理。这个决定是高速互联网服务进入美国家庭的管理上的一个里程碑。

Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”

FCC主席汤姆·惠勒(Tom Wheeler)说，委员会在使用“工具箱中的所有工具来保护创新者和消费者”，同时也要确保互联网作为“言论自由和民主原则基石”的作用。

The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.

新规则是以3票对2票通过的。投支持票者与投反对票者分别来自两个不同的党派。新规旨在确保任何内容都不被屏蔽，同时，互联网也不会被分割出网络及媒体公司可以付费使用的快速路，把慢速路留给其他人。这是网络中立概念的核心原则。

Explaining the reason for the regulation, Mr. Wheeler, a Democrat, said that Internet access was “too important to let broadband providers be the ones making the rules.”

解释新规则时，民主党人惠勒说，能够接触和使用互联网“至关重要，因此不能由宽带提供商制定规则”。

Mobile data service for smartphones and tablets, in addition to wired lines, is being placed under the new rules. The order also includes provisions to protect consumer privacy and to ensure that Internet service is available to people with disabilities and in remote areas.

除了有线网络，针对智能手机和平板电脑的移动数据服务也将受新规监管。周四的决议还包括保护消费者隐私的条款，和确保残障者及偏远地区都能使用互联网的内容。

Before the vote, each of the five commissioners spoke and the Republicans delivered a scathing critique of the order as overly broad, vague and unnecessary. Ajit Pai, a Republican commissioner, said the rules were government meddling in a vibrant, competitive market and were likely to deter investment, undermine innovation and ultimately harm consumers.

投票前，委员会的五名成员都发了言。共和党人对规则提出了尖锐批评，指责它太宽泛、含糊、没有必要。共和党委员阿吉特·佩(Ajit Pai)说，新规意味着政府干预一个活跃、充满竞争的市场，可能会打击投资，削弱创新，最终伤害消费者。

“The Internet is not broken,” Mr. Pai said. “There is no problem to solve.”

“互联网没有出问题，”佩说，“没有什么问题需要解决。”

The impact of the new rules will hinge partly on details that are not yet known. The rules will not be published for at least a couple of days, and will not take effect for probably at least a couple of months. Lawsuits to challenge the commission’s order are widely expected.

新规的影响主要取决于细节内容；目前尚不得而知。这些规则至少要两天后才会公布，至少两个月后才会生效。很可能还会发生诉讼，对新规发起挑战。

The F.C.C. is taking this big regulatory step by reclassifying high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. The Title II classification comes from the phone company era, treating service as a public utility.

FCC此次在监管上迈出了一大步，根据《电信法》第二章，把高速互联网服务定义为一种通信服务，而非信息服务。这条法律中的分类起源于电话公司时代，将电话服务归类为公共服务。

But the new rules are an à la carte version of Title II, adopting some provisions and shunning others. The F.C.C. will not get involved in pricing decisions or the engineering decisions companies make in managing their networks. Mr. Wheeler, who gave a forceful defense of the rules just ahead of the vote, said the tailored approach was anything but old-style utility regulation. “These are a 21st-century set of rules for a 21st-century industry,” he said.

但新规是对第二章的选择性使用，一些条款被采纳，一些则被规避。FCC不介入公司的定价决定和工程设计决定。惠勒在表决前极力为新规辩护，说这种定制式的监管方式绝不是老式的公共设施法规。“这是21世纪的法规，适用于21世纪的行业，”他说。

Opponents of the new rules, led by cable television and telecommunications companies, say adopting the Title II approach opens the door to bureaucratic interference with business decisions that, if let stand, would reduce incentives to invest and thus raise prices and hurt consumers.

新规的反对者包括有线电视网和通信公司。他们说，对第二章的采用开启了政府干预商业决策的大门，如果被执行，会降低投资积极性，导致价格提高，伤害消费者。

“Today, the F.C.C. took one of the most regulatory steps in its history,” Michael Powell, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and a chairman of the F.C.C. in the Bush administration, said in a statement. “The commission has breathed new life into the decayed telephone regulatory model and applied it to the most dynamic, freewheeling and innovative platform in history.”

“今天，FCC迈出了有史以来最大的监管步伐，”国家有线电视和电信协会主席、布什总统时代的FCC主席迈克尔·鲍威尔(Michael Powell)在一则声明中说。“委员会为陈旧的电话监管模式注入了新生命，把它应用于历史上最有活力，最自由，也最具创新的一个平台上。”

Supporters of the Title II model include many major Internet companies, start-ups and public interest groups. In a statement, Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, which includes Google, Facebook and smaller online companies, called the F.C.C. vote “a welcome step in our effort to create strong, enforceable net neutrality rules.”

第二章模式的支持者包括许多大型互联网公司、初创企业，以及公共利益团体。互联网协会会长迈克尔·贝克曼(Michael Beckerman)在一份声明中称，FCC的表决为“我们努力创造强有力的、可执行的网络中立性规则迈出了可喜的一步”，互联网协会包括谷歌、Facebook，以及较小的网络公司。

The F.C.C.’s yearlong path to issuing rules to ensure an open Internet precipitated an extraordinary level of political involvement, from grass-roots populism to the White House, for a regulatory ruling. The F.C.C. received four million comments, about a quarter of them generated through a campaign organized by groups including Fight for the Future, an advocacy nonprofit.

为了确保一个开放的互联网，FCC用了一年的时间来制定规则，引来从基层民粹主义者到白宫的政治参与，这对制定管理法规来说异乎寻常。FCC收到了400万份意见，大约有四分之一来自一个运动，运动是由“争取未来”(Fight for the Future)等倡导性非盈利团体组织的。

Evan Greer, campaign director for Fight for the Future, said, “This shows that the Internet has changed the rules of what can be accomplished in Washington.”

“争取未来”的该活动负责人埃文·格里尔(Evan Greer)说，“这表明，互联网已经改变了华盛顿能够做什么事情的规则。”

An overwhelming majority of the comments supported common-carrier style rules, like those in the order the commission approved on Thursday.

绝大多数的意见支持公共通信企业类型的规则，正如委员会周四批准的那种。

In the public meeting, Mr. Wheeler began his remarks by noting the flood of public comments. “We listened and we learned,” he said.

在这个公开会议上，惠勒在讲话中首先提到了大量的公众意见。他说，“我们听取了意见，我们从中学到了东西。”

In November, President Obama took the unusual step of urging the F.C.C., an independent agency, to adopt the “strongest possible rules” on net neutrality.

去年11月，奥巴马总统不同寻常地向FCC发出呼吁，敦促这个独立的机构在网络中立性上采取“尽可能最强有力的规则”。

Mr. Obama specifically called on the commission to classify high-speed broadband service as a utility under Title II. His rationale: “For most Americans, the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life.”

奥巴马特别呼吁委员会把高速宽带服务归类为第二章的公用事业。他的理由是：“对于大多数美国人来说，互联网已经成为日常交流和日常生活中必不可少的一部分。”

Republicans in Congress were slow to react, and initially misread the public mood. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas portrayed the F.C.C. rule-making process as a heavy-handed liberal initiative, “Obamacare for the Internet.”

国会中的共和党人反应迟缓，最初还误读了公众的情绪。德克萨斯州参议员特德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)曾把FCC的规则制定过程描述为自由主义者笨手笨脚的动作，是“互联网的奥巴马医改”。

In January, Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican, began circulating legislation that embraced the principles of net neutrality, banning both paid-for priority lanes and the blocking or throttling of any web content. But it would also prohibit the F.C.C. from issuing regulations to achieve those goals. This week, the Republicans pulled back, with too little support to move quickly.

今年1月，南达科他州共和党参议员约翰·图恩(John Thune)开始提交一个法规议案，支持网络中立原则，禁止付费优先通路以及封锁或限制任何网页内容的做法。但该法规也将禁止FCC为实现这些目标来制定规则。本周，共和党人因为支持者太少、无法快速推动而放弃了这些做法。

Also at the Thursday meeting, the F.C.C. approved an order to pre-empt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services. The order focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. About 20 states, by the F.C.C.’s count, have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services.

也是在周四的会议上，FCC批准了一条命令，事先禁止了各州限制市政府扩建宽带互联网服务的法律。该命令主要针对北卡罗来纳州和田纳西州的法律，但也为其他州建立了一个政策框架。据FCC统计，大约20个州有限制社区宽带服务活动的法律。

The state laws unfairly restrict municipal competition with cable and telecommunications broadband providers, the F.C.C. said. This order, too, will surely be challenged in court.

FCC说，这些州的法律不公平地限制了市政部门与有线电视和电信宽带服务提供商的竞争。这条命令必将会在法庭上受到挑战。