Landmark net neutrality rules rescinded under former President Donald Trump could return under a new push by U.S. Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would reclassify broadband access as an essential service on par with other utilities like water or power.
“For everyone, everywhere, to enjoy the full benefits of the internet age, internet access should be more than just accessible and affordable,” Rosenworcel said at an event at the National Press Club. “The internet needs to be open.”
The proposed rules would return fixed and mobile broadband service to its status as an essential telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. It would also prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic and from selling “fast lanes” that prioritize some traffic over others in exchange for payment.
The move comes after Democrats took majority control of the five-member FCC on Monday for the first time since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 when new FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez was sworn in.
Rosenworcel said the FCC will vote in October to take public comment on the proposed rules.
Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, and it’s pretty much how the internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the internet — blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example.
The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies don’t manipulate traffic. With them in place, a provider such as Comcast can’t charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down.
The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that weren’t explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that “zero rating” practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Under current chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely.
A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued.
However, the FCC junked the Obama-era principle in 2017. The move represented a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight.
The only issue I see with public utilities is that I've dealt with 1 decent electric and water service and 3-4 terrible electric companies. I had no choices like switching or negotiating better prices. Comcast in my area won't give me a 1 GB upload, but I use my upload a lot. Comcast gives 1 GB download and 30 MB upload which is slow for my work. CenturyLink gives me 1 GB up and down and charges less than Comcast for it.
I want the protection of an essential service since I've worked from home for 10 years and when the internet goes down I start losing money. But also my power has gone out more than my internet and that is a utility. So it feels like just classifying it as a utility is going to potentially give less choice and less ability while providing almost no protection.
I think it's cool you have those options, but I wonder how common it is to have options. I have always heard that 'because people don't have those options' as a reason to make it essential. Except where I moved to this year, nowhere I have lived in the past 20 years had multiple options except back when Internet via phone line was an option.
Electricity is essentially everywhere people live. There are entire towns located in places without mobile phone service and quite possibly very poor or no internet access.
Maybe both can exist? A utility internet provider and a room for private consumer internet providers. Because I've always had more than 2 options. I lived in greater Seattle though. So always near a major city. That way the public utility acts as a baseline in which private providers have to compete with.
Ya maybe! I fully agree that more options could possibly be better, but also that one is better than none is done correctly. But "correctly" is probably dubious...
Another thing you touched on is pricing. This is something that ostensibly regulation would help with.