The internet is surviving the pandemic — let the feuding begin

The internet is still functioning in Europe, aside from some of the same kinds of slowdowns, interruptions and scattered outages that specific US-based apps or services have also experienced in the past month. And US regulators haven’t been shy about intervening to try to keep the series of tubes at capacity — even without much in the way of legal authority to enforce their will. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has emerged as the most public figure in that effort, securing pledges from hundreds of internet providers to open Wi-Fi hotspots to Americans in need, waive any late fees for residential and small business customers and keep serving customers unable to pay bills during the pandemic. He has also made a series of regulatory tweaks to make the task easier for companies, from waiving deadlines to helping low-income consumers keep their telecommunications subsidies to allowing wireless carriers to boost their network capacity by tapping into new airwaves.

On the other hand, Chairman Pai has rejected calls from colleagues for the FCC to collect and disseminate regular reports on network demand and capacity. Instead, he has encouraged industry reporting mechanisms such as a dashboard of network performance metrics created by the cable industry. Democrats, though, are calling for a massive ramp-up in the FCC’s role. That includes a plea for the commission to spend billions of subsidy dollars — potentially coming from future congressional appropriations or a refashioning of existing FCC subsidy funds — to help ensure broadband connections for students stuck at home and for low-income households who may not be able to afford ISPs' offerings, even as Republicans question whether these ideas stretch the agency’s statutory limits.