Having just entered an 11 am meeting on the subject, the FCC is expected to rule today to deregulate DSL, provided Commission chief Kevin Martin can convince his fellow Democratic commissioners it's a good idea. This is something the bells have spent millions lobbying to achieve for the better part of the last decade.

By ruling DSL as an "information service", the FCC would effectively eliminate line-sharing as we know it, and with it - much of the competition the 1996 Telecom Act attempted (often failed) to create. According to FCC Chief Martin: "It is my strong hope that this order will be adopted as soon as possible so that consumers can reap the benefits of continued infrastructure investment and the increased deployment of broadband services."

While proponents of such a move (incumbents, incumbent employees, fans of a free market) have remained largely quiet, complaints from those opposed to the move (CLECs, consumer advocates) have reached a fevered pitch:

Jeff Pulver complains that while the bells get deregulated, VoIP gets leashed: "So, if anyone spins the day as a triumph for deregulation and the free market, look a little closer. The Internet is getting regulated for the first time, while telecom is deregulated. Regulate the overly competitive application market? Deregulate the barely competitive access market? Something is backwards."

The Consumer's Union claims that "deregulating DSL is one step forward and 300 steps backward.” “We will take this to Congress," promises policy analyst Kenneth DeGraff. "Open access is responsible for the only true competition in broadband connectivity. Open access to DSL gave us competition. It gave us EarthLink, AOL, and Juno, and lower prices.”

Jupiter Research analyst Joseph Laszlo: "For customers of independent DSL-based Internet service providers today, this is potentially a very big deal. They might be forced to change providers. It'll have the opposite effect Commissioner Martin and a lot of other people think it will."