Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Kevin Martin ascended to the podium at Thursday's hearing on net neutrality, sounding even more rushed and befuddled than usual. The FCC "did also invite the carriers to participate in today's event as well, several weeks ago," Martin hurriedly explained at Stanford University's Dinkelspiel auditorium. "We did reach out to Comcast, who declined. We reached out to Time Warner, to Cable Labs, to AT&T."

In fact, Martin added, the FCC invited Comcast yet again after it announced its "P2P bill of rights and responsibilities" in partnership with Pando Networks—all to no avail. "So I just want to make sure that everyone understands that we tried to make this as open and as transparent as possible."

It was just as well. The absence of the big carriers—especially the aggressive and ever-maneuvering Comcast—allowed a dialogue to take place at Stanford. A conversation emerged in which the FCC's key players on this complex issue laid out their visions for the agency's oversight of what ISPs call "network management" and critics call the crude blocking of file sharing applications.

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