White House approves net neutrality rules

Setting the stage for new legal battles over net neutrality, the White House Office of Management and Budget approved rules passed by the FCC last December that would prevent broadband providers from throttling traffic from Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and other online video providers.

The new rules are expected to be published within the next three weeks in the Federal Register, and then would go into effect 60 days after publication.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS) sued the FCC earlier this year in an attempt to block the new rules, but the U.S. Court of Appeals said the lawsuits were premature. New lawsuits will likely be filed once the new rules are in place.

Net neutrality will continue to be a hot issue for pay TV providers that also market high-speed Internet services. With more consumers cutting the cord on pay TV to rely on Netflix, Hulu, and other online video providers, consumer groups are concerned that Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Verizon and other broadband providers could throttle the speeds of content delivered by Web providers in order to protect the value of their pay TV programming packages.

For more:
- Reuters has this story
- National Journal has this story

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