FCC rule against broadband digital discrimination goes into effect

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) required the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination in regard to access to broadband, and those rules went into effect on March 22. According to the FCC, the rules will “help to ameliorate a digital divide that has underpinnings in the country's historical segregation and redlining practices in housing.” The six characteristics of digital discrimination of broadband access, which providers need to avoid are: income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion and national origin. The FCC is setting up a dedicated online portal for digital discrimination complaints and will be collecting voluntary demographic information from filers who submit a complaint.  The rules cover broadband providers as well as their contractors and partners. The definition of “broadband consumer” includes current subscribers as well as prospective subscribers. This is an important distinction because it’s potentially the unserved prospective subscribers who are being discriminated against.