The FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order is Ignorant of and Conflicts With the Internet's Architecture

The Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) Order reclassified broadband Internet access service from a telecommunications service to an information service, largely on the basis of an interpretation of broadband service that is fundamentally incorrect.  This reclassification gave the FCC the license not only to repeal the 2015 net neutrality rules, but to abdicate its role overseeing the broadband market. The most basic tenets of Internet architecture, which remain in place to this day, are that: (1) the transmission of data is provided by the Internet Protocol, (2) applications are provided by application providers which are usually not broadband providers, and (3) the transmission of data is separable from the applications that ride over it. The expert agency that regulates communications should understand these fundamentals of Internet architecture.  And the “the factual particulars of how Internet technology works and how it is provided” should matter; even the Supreme Court said so.

[Scott Jordan is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.  His current research interests are Internet policy issues, including net neutrality, interconnection, and device attachment.  He served as the Chief Technologist of the Federal Communications Commission during 2014-2016.]