Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser and operating system, has filed a petition for rulemaking in the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) network neutrality proceeding. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC’s network neutrality rules in January, and the FCC is expected to act on a new proposal at its May Open Meeting. In a blog post, Mozilla expressed concern that the FCC’s approach would not adequately safeguard the open Internet. According to Mozilla, last-mile terminating access Internet routing is currently understood to include one type of commercial relationship: between an ISP and an end user, connecting the end user to all Internet sites. Mozilla’s petition asks the FCC to recognize two distinct relationships in the last mile of the network: the current one, between an ISP and an end user, which is unchanged, plus a “remote delivery” service offered by an ISP to an edge provider, connecting the provider to all of the ISP’s end users. It then asks the FCC to designate remote delivery services as telecommunications services under Title II of the Communications Act.
