If net neutrality still existed, here’s how coronavirus could have played out

The Federal Communications Commission has made efforts to keep Americans connected to the internet during the coronavirus pandemic, but experts say its controversial decision to repeal net neutrality rules has handicapped the agency from doing more. The most high-profile action has been having internet service providers (ISPs) and telephone providers sign a pledge to keep people connected. The FCC’s pledge serves as a good example of what position the agency’s net neutrality repeal has put them in during the coronavirus pandemic, experts say. With Title II authority, the FCC wouldn’t need to ask for a pledge.

“We’re talking about what the FCC did to itself. By reclassifying broadband as an information service and taking broadband out of Title II, it took any ability for the FCC to enforce its pledge and any other promises the ISPs might make,” said Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and former FCC counselor. “They have no power to require anything of the broadband ISPs. They can only ask or beg, and that’s what they’ve been doing.”