BlackBerry wants Internet rules to touch Netflix, Apple policies

The mobile phone company BlackBerry is looking to expand the definition of net neutrality to force companies like Apple and Netflix to allow their applications to run on BlackBerry devices. 

The company’s chief executive, John Chen, sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees this week, saying that “not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality.”

Chen scorned the fact that Apple does not allow BlackBerry users to download the Apple iMessage service and that Netflix does not allow BlackBerry users to stream video on their devices. 

{mosads}”All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system,” Chen wrote in a blog post. 

The debate about so-called net neutrality rules being crafted by the Federal Communications Commission has focused on the dynamic between Internet service providers — like Comcast and Verizon — and content providers — websites like Netflix that offer content to their customers. 

Advocates for strong open Internet rules have called for the FCC to enforce strong rules that would prevent Internet providers like Comcast from blocking or slowing traffic to any website, while also prohibiting deals that would create a “fast lane” to sites willing to pay. 

But Chen said regulators are looking past a large portion of the debate, saying that websites and application providers are just as important to regulate when crafting Internet rules. 

“The carriers are like the railways of the last century, building the tracks to carry traffic to all points throughout the country,” he said. “But the railway cars traveling on those tracks are, in today’s Internet world, controlled not by the carriers but by content and applications providers.”

The FCC will vote on rules next month that are expected to reclassify broadband similar to a utility to enforce stronger regulations. Chen said reclassification “seems excessive.”