FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
Right now, you're likely using a hardwired Internet connection to read this. You may be on your laptop in your living room, but the WiFi broadcast from your home router is coming from a cable connected to it. The majority of Internet connections in the US are provided this way, by physical wires on a very large and extensive grid. Recently, however, the "Internet market" has been evolving rapidly into a more unbound, wireless market. The exponential growth in popularity and availability of smart phones is largely responsible for this.
In their efforts to combat Net Neutrality and extend their control over the Internet, telecoms have taken into deep consideration the difference between "wired" and "wireless" in order to best exploit the distinction when dealing with the FCC.
As recently as December of 2010, the FCC made a pretty serious mistake for not paying better attention to this distinction. Their most recently passed Net Neutrality proposal, which applies primarily to wired Internet traffic, only vaguely imposes rules on wireless services. This proposal is still currently being debated and the FCC is scrambling to recover their bargaining chips while they face a torrent of descent from politicians and a very large lawsuit from Verizon.
As it stands now, the state of this proposal, if enacted, is a very serious threat to the future of the Internet. As I've stressed before, the future of the Internet is wireless. Telecoms are deviously taking advantage of the shortsightedness of the FCC and exploiting every dubious legal loophole they can find to secure their futures. They know the future is wireless and could care less for wired priorities. They convinced the FCC they had made compromising progress by accepting limitations on wired connections knowing full well they were safe from regulation.
