Video streamers and other edge providers are fighting a multi-front war in Washington lately, as Congress applies pressure on the FCC to apply good-faith negotiation rules to over-the-top content providers, as it does traditional video providers, and as hundreds of rural broadband providers and associations call on the agency to make edge providers contribute to broadband buildout subsidies.
A decade ago, the Federal Communications Commission wrestled with the issue of how and whether to regulate the over-the-top delivery of TV programming networks. Though Obama-era FCC chair Tom Wheeler opened a formal inquiry, and then reportedly got as far as working on an item that would define linear programming streams as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), nothing materialized. In that case, the issue was online video provider access to content — MVPDs are subject to program access and carriage rules — and providng FCC-enforced access to vertically integrated programming to promote competition to traditional video.
