According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC is seriously considering re-establishing some kind of open access rules, which would give new entrants access to incumbent infrastructure at reduced price. Open access was the central idea behind the 1996 telecom act, which required incumbent operators to share network access with smaller competitors in order to bolster competition as those upstarts grew into legitimate carriers. A combination of inconsistent regulation and incumbent lobbying ultimately resulted in the U.S. scrapping the idea, though other countries (like France) were able to make the idea work.

Last month, the FCC ruffled feathers when an FCC-funded study by the Harvard University's Berkman Center suggested that such open access policies, when supported by consistent regulation, resulted lower prices, improved broadband penetration, and better service for consumers. That study was quickly set upon by industry lobbyists and their various policy mouthpieces, notes the Washington Post. The National Cable And Telecommunications Association quickly attacked the report as both biased and unreliable:Of course the National Cable and Telecommunications Association itself is no stranger to the idea of fitting the science to the political agenda, so their lamentations on the subject ring a little hollow. Given said companies spent millions of dollars and the better part of the last decade derailing the last effort to impose these kinds of sharing obligations, they're no doubt daunted by the possibility of having to do it all over again.