Why net neutrality hasn't always been a partisan issue

In recent years, network neutrality regulations have become a more overtly political issue that often pits Democratic proponents against Republican opponents. But a look back at media reports on the issue over more than a decade shows that this issue hasn’t always been as nakedly partisan, though it’s arguably long been divisive.

More than a decade ago, a proposal by former Federal Communications Commission head Michael Powell that is sometimes seen as an early version of net neutrality barely merited a mention when Powell, a Republican, left the commission in 2005. The proposal, unveiled in a speech in Boulder (CO) in 2004, called for four “Internet freedoms” for consumers: the ability to access content freely, to use a variety of Internet applications without interference, to add “personal devices” to a users’ network, and to obtain information about their service plans. Instead, media accounts of his departure point to Powell’s role in the FCC’s “indecency crusade” following Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Superbowl, and to his focus on maintaining a free market among cable and phone providers, arguing that came at consumers’ expense. Since his 2004 proposal, Powell who is now head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, has often differentiated his proposals from the abstract idea of “net neutrality.” “The open Internet is a good thing,” he said at a conference in 2006 at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, the Hollywood Reporter noted. “But ‘net neutrality’ is an invitation to draw government into the Internet in a much bigger way than people have anticipated." Companies also appeared to support Powell’s Internet freedoms, with one executive saying the principles could transcend partisan differences.