Welcome back everyone to the new and improved Wetmachine.com! I beg everyone’s indulgence while I figure out our new interface.
Every now and then, the universe hands you some lousy timing. Case in point for RCN. Back in March, when RCN announced its pending acquisition by Yankee Group, no one gave it a second thought. It all looked very uncontroversial and part of the natural consolidation for the few survivors of the debacle we call “intermodal competition.” But in what RCN can only view as the worst possible timing, the FCC put the deal out for public comment right after several stories that RCN had settled a class action for blocking p2p applications in a manner reminiscent of Comcast. (RCN “vigorously denies all wrongdoing,” but it is unclear whether they deny blocking or whether they deny they did anything wrong by blocking.)
Why does this matter? Because RCN has just become the prime opportunity for the FCC to answer the question “What’s our authority after the Comcast/BitTorrent case?”