Why Net Neutrality now needs to find its own locomotion

The reality is that net neutrality didn't become an issue and have any traction until pro net neutrality forces attached the issue to a moving legislative vehicle last year -- the video franchise reform bill.

• Essentially the online giants and Save the Internet were able to play "big" with few resources. To their credit, they were able to create a lot of attention and a whole lot of obstruction to the process. They won the battle of stopping the bill, but lost the war of legislating net neturality.  

Well now the shoe is on the other foot. Net neutrality proponents now need to build momentum for a bill from scratch, because the companies that pushed it last time are not going to push it this time. They will be able to play defense, which as the net neturality proponents learned this past year, is a lot easier than legislating.

• On Wednesday, it was very significant that at the Big Wall Street UBS conference hosted by John Hodulik, that all the Bell CFOs reset Wall Street expectations that they did not need any legislation of major things done in Washington this year.  They also explained that since both the telecom and cable companies were united in opposition to net neutrality -- the isssue was going nowhere next Congress.

Next year we will see if there is a real there there surrounding net neutrality. Net neutrality proponents will learn for themselves how easy it is to play defense rather than offense in Washington.

It will be interesting to see if net neturality proponents can turn both their ragtag coalition and their ratbag of unsubstantiated allegations into policy consensus and a successful legislative vehicle. It will prove hard. Real hard.

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