Internet now regulated as a public utility
THE Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday, Feb. 26 to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility.
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as “a core of free expression and democratic principles.”
The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, will replace regulations that had been thrown out by a federal court last year. They are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet service is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. In other words, preventing providers from blocking or slowing down traffic on certain wireless networks.
Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept, which would allow Internet service providers to enable access to all content and applications, without blocking particular sites and products or playing favorites.
The rules also ban service providers from offering paid priority services that could allow them to charge content companies, for example Netflix, fees to access Internet “fast lanes” to reach customers more quickly when networks are congested.
Explaining the reason for the regulation, Wheeler said that Internet access was “too important to let broadband providers be the ones making the rules.”
Mobile data service for smartphones and tablets, in addition to wired lines, is being placed under the new rules. The order also includes provisions to protect consumer privacy and to ensure that Internet service is available for those with disabilities, and those living in remote areas.
Before the vote, each of the five commissioners spoke and the Republicans delivered a scathing critique of the FCC’s order as “overly broad, vague and unnecessary.” Some critics have even painted Wheeler’s proposal as “a secret plan to regulate the Internet.”
Ajit Pai, a Republican commissioner, said the rules were “government meddling in a vibrant, competitive market, and were likely to deter investment, undermine innovation and ultimately harm consumers.”
“The Internet is not broken,” Pai said. “There is no problem to solve.”
Details of the new rules will not be published for a couple of days, and will likely not take effect for at least a couple of months. Lawsuits to challenge the commission’s order and its large impact are also widely expected.
The FCC is taking this big regulatory step by reclassifying high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which would treat service as a public utility.
The rules are an “a la carte” version of Title II, adopting some provisions and shunning others. For instance, the FCC will not get involved in pricing decisions or the engineering decisions companies make in managing their networks. Wheeler, who gave a forceful defense of the rules just ahead of the commission’s vote, said the tailored approach was “anything but old-style utility regulation.”
“These are a 21st-century set of rules for a 21st-century industry,” he said.
Opponents of the new rules, including cable television and telecommunications companies, say that adopting the Title II approach opens the door to bureaucratic interference with business decisions that, if let stand, would reduce incentives to invest and thus raise prices, hurting the consumer market.
“Today, the FCC took one of the most regulatory steps in its history,” said Michael Powell, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and chairman of the FCC during the George W. Bush administration. “The commission has breathed new life into the decayed telephone regulatory model and applied it to the most dynamic, freewheeling and innovative platform in history.”
Supporters of the Title II model include many major Internet companies, start-ups and public interest groups. In a statement, Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association (includes Google, Facebook, and smaller online companies) called the FCC vote “a welcome step in our effort to create strong, enforceable net neutrality rules.”
It has been a yearlong journey for the FCC to issue new net rules to ensure a more open, protected Internet and greater access for consumers. From grassroots organizing to the White House, frenzied political lobbying and gathering support through a campaign by nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future, the FCC received millions of comments and feedback on its plans for implementing new rules.
President Barack Obama has also urged the FCC to adopt the “strongest possible rules” on net neutrality, calling on the commission to classify high-speed broadband service as a utility under Title II, which he believes is the only way to ensure the Internet remains open to everyone. “For most Americans, the Internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life,” he said.
Some Republicans in Congress were slow to react, with one senator from Texas calling the FCC’s rule-making process “Obamacare for the Internet.”
“The Internet should not operate at the speed of government,” Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted.
In January, Senator John Thune (R-SD) began circulating legislation that embraced the principles of net neutrality, banning both paid-for priority lanes and blocking or throttling of any web content. But it would also prohibit the FCC from issuing regulations to achieve those goals. Republicans pulled back this week, with too little support to move quickly forward.
The Greenlining Institute applauded the FCC’s decision, as the organization has long argued that net neutrality is the way to protect low-income consumers and communities of color from “digital redlining” by providers.
“The FCC got this right,” Greenlining Institute Energy and Telecommunications Policy Director Stephanie Chen said in a statement. “Without today’s action we were heading toward a new form of redlining, a sort of digital Jim Crow, that would have devastated communities of color and low-income consumers across the board. Treating broadband as a telecommunications service – that is, as the essential public service it is – is the only sure way to make sure we never face digital redlining.”
In July, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC submitted comments calling on the FCC to protect and promote an open Internet, and to take the interests of Asian American and other minority communities into consideration.
“We have supported net neutrality rules that promote diverse voices, freedom of speech and the ability for our communities to participate in entrepreneurialism without barriers or restrictions on the Internet,” Mee Moua, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC said, “This order ensures that these opportunities will remain.”
By treating broadband as a telecommunications service, the rules also encourage the expansion of broadband into unserved and underserved areas.
At Thursday’s meeting, the FCC also approved an order to preempt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services, focusing on laws in several states, but creating a policy framework for other states. By the FCC’s count, at least 21 states currently have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services.
“This shows that the Internet has changed the rules of what can be accomplished in Washington,” said Evan Greer, campaign director for Fight for the Future.
An overwhelming majority of comments supported common-carrier style rules, like those in the FCC’s new order.
“We listened and we learned,” said Wheeler.
(With reports from the New York Times, CNET)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend February 28 – March 3, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
