Internet/Broadband

[Commentary] Faculty members who teach face-to-face may imagine that the vote by the Federal Communications Commission to dismantle net neutrality doesn’t touch them, since their instruction is exclusively on campus, not plugged in to the web. Unfortunately, they’re mistaken. Online or off, teaching and doing research in today’s immersive digital environment makes it almost impossible for anyone—even technophobes—to hide from the web. These days hardly a class exists at any college or university that operates without logging onto a learning management system.

The need for competition and for affordable access to broadband remains. Rather than fight over net neutrality, the large internet companies and telecoms should take a cue from what happened to big financial institutions after the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Seen as the culprits for millions losing homes and retirements savings, banks were subject to draconian regulations, civil suits and hefty fines. If the public perceives that those companies are reaping disproportionate rewards at the public’s expense, it will act swiftly and punitively.

Internet users have been justly outraged by the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to ignore the public and repeal net neutrality rules. But few media outlets or internet users seem to understand that the net neutrality repeal is just one small part of a massive, larger plan to eliminate nearly all meaningful federal and state oversight of some of the least-liked and least-competitive companies in America. To be clear: the net neutrality repeal itself is awful policy that ignores both the will of the public and the people who built the damn internet.

AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier and other providers that want to further expand rural broadband will soon be able to bid in the Federal Communications Commission’s $2 billion additional Connect America Fund II auction. The FCC has identified nearly 1 million homes and small businesses that will be eligible for broadband deployment support over the next 10 years. A large majority of the rural areas the FCC identified do not have access to broadband internet service. Given the low density of these areas, service providers are unlikely to expand service without federal support. 

Millions of Americans have been caught up in a bitter debate over the repeal of net neutrality rules that prevented broadband providers from blocking websites or demanding fees to reach consumers.

British homes and businesses will have a legal right to high-speed broadband by 2020, the government has announced, dismissing calls from the network provider BT that it should be a voluntary rather than legal obligation on providers. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said only a universal service obligation (USO) would offer certainty that broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps would reach the whole of the UK by 2020. Broadband providers will now have a legal requirement to provide high-speed broadband to anyone who requests it, no matter where they are in the country.

Ajit Pai is drunk on free market economics. There’s no other way to explain his decision as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission’s to tear up the nation’s net neutrality rules for no good reason. Contrary to the view of some critics, Pai is not corrupt. Yes, he was a lawyer for Verizon, a fierce opponent of net neutrality, but his decision to scrap the rules was not motivated by a desire to win favor with his former bosses in the telecom industry. Instead, the problem is that Pai is a zealot.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has made one of those “break the ‘net” videos — but not in the usual way. In an apparent effort to either pump up his base or win over undecideds, Pai made a video called “Seven Things You Can Still Do On the Internet After Net Neutrality.” I can say unequivocally as someone doing this for 20 years, this video is truly bizarre in the annals of FCC history for a number of reasons.

The ink isn't dry yet on the federal government's decision to repeal its network neutrality rules, and yet many are already gearing up for what they say is an inevitable legal battle (once again) over the future of the Web. Because of the potentially far-reaching consequences of the vote, consumer groups and some state attorneys general have vowed to sue the FCC to overturn its decision. The first suits could be filed in mid-January, according to some analysts. Opponents of the FCC are expected to make two broad categories of arguments.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced network neutrality legislation, the Open Internet Preservation Act, that prohibits internet providers from blocking and throttling content, but does not address whether Internet service providers can create so-called “fast lanes” of traffic for sites willing to pay for it. The legislation also would require that ISPs disclose their terms of service, and ensure that federal law preempts any state efforts to establish rules of the road for internet traffic.