Courage and Good Sense at the F.C.C.

The Federal Communications Commission will soon put in place regulations designed to prevent cable and phone companies from blocking or slowing down information on the Internet. The companies and their congressional allies are using scare tactics to stop this from happening.

On Wednesday, the chairman of the F.C.C., Tom Wheeler, proposed reclassifying broadband Internet service provided by companies like Comcast and AT&T as a telecommunications service. That will give the commission legal authority to issue common-sense rules about how cable and phone companies treat their customers. Under those regulations, such companies would not be able to block or slow down information on their networks, which — absent new rules — they might be tempted to do to force customers to pay for a more expensive service. And cable and phone companies would not be allowed to give priority to the delivery of videos and other content from businesses that are willing to pay a fee. That would prejudice start-ups that do not have the deep pockets of established players, like, say, Amazon or YouTube, to pay the premium fees.

The telecommunications industry and Republicans like Senator John Thune of South Dakota are accusing Mr. Wheeler and President Obama, who called for strong rules in November, of imposing “public utility” regulations on the Internet. This, they say, will stifle the incentive to invest in high-speed networks. Those arguments are preposterous. The commission is not trying to regulate the price of broadband service. Nor is it forcing cable and phone companies to lease access to their networks to competitors, which it could do under a 1996 telecommunications law.

The truth is the F.C.C. is taking a measured approach, justified by the growing importance of Internet access, which has become the most important communications service for most individuals and businesses. An executive at Google recently said the commission’s proposals would not deter the company from building broadband networks known as Google Fiber in cities like Atlanta and Nashville. Even Verizon’s chief financial officer told investors in December that Mr. Wheeler’s plans would “not influence the way we invest.”

Indeed, there is good reason to think that strong rules will actually help innovation flourish because it will assure entrepreneurs that they can develop products and services without having to go through gatekeepers at large cable and phone companies. History confirms this. Starting in the late 1960s, the F.C.C. issued a series of decisions and rules that later allowed companies like AOL to sell dial-up Internet service over telephone lines. The widespread adoption of the Internet was made possible partly because the commission forced AT&T, then a monopoly, to allow equipment like modems made by other companies to use its network, something it bitterly resisted. That could have happened only with the kind of common carrier rules Mr. Wheeler is now proposing for broadband.