An Interview with Gigi Sohn: Net neutrality was repealed a year ago. What’s happened since?

A Q&A with Gigi Sohn, Benton Senior Fellow and a distinguished fellow at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law and Policy.

Sohn: "When the Trump Federal Communications Commission repealed the 2015 Open Internet Order it didn’t just eliminate the prohibitions against blocking and throttling and pay prioritization. These were things that Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Charter were not allowed to do. They were not allowed to control your internet experience, but it also gave away oversight over the broadband industry. The FCC abdicated its responsibility to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market. That is the most important thing that happened on Dec 14th, 2017 when the FCC repealed the Open Internet Order. But let me explain three things that have happened in the last year and a couple of months that clearly demonstrate that what the FCC did is really terrible for consumers terrible for competition and frankly terrible for public safety." Sohn demonstrated the harms by discussing: 1) the issue of Verizon throttling the Santa Clara County (CA) Fire Department; 2) Mobile carriers selling precise geo location data of their customers, and; 3) Frontier charging rental fees to a customer who was not renting a router, with the FCC effectively delegating their oversight of the broadband industry to the broadband industry. "When I say they’ve abdicated their responsibility and the repeal of the 2015 Open Internet order allowed them to do that, those are the deep cuts I’m talking about. And those are no joke," she said.