With new internet rules set for vote, firestorm debate on new rulings will not die
WASHINGTON: US regulators are gearing up for a vote on a plan which – depending on your viewpoint – would ‘restore internet freedom’ or, alternatively, result in ‘the death of the internet’ as we know it.
The Federal Communications Commission will consider a rollback of its 2015 order aimed at enforcing ‘net neutrality’, or the notion of treating all data and content providers equally. FCC chairman Ajit Pai last month unveiled the plan, the latest twist in a dispute over more than a decade, with both sides claiming to promote a ‘ free and open’ internet.
The plan, widely expected to be approved on a three to two partyline vote Thursday, would reverse the rules adopted two years earlier which ban broadband providers from blocking or throttling rivals, or using ‘ fast’ and ‘slow’ lanes for different services.
Pai, named chairman by President Donald Trump, said the 2015 rules “depress investment and innovation.”
Critics of the existing rules say they rely on 1930s- era rules for telephone companies, which could in theory lead to price regulation and other burdens. But net neutrality backers argue that the rollback will enable internet service providers ( ISPs) to shut out rivals that compete with their services or those of partners.
They point out that some ISPs in the past have tried to force users to their own search engines, or block online calling services such as Skype or Vonage, or require a premium for Apple’s FaceTime video calling.
The Pai proposal “will lead to a dramatic transformation of how the internet works,” said Sarah Morris, who heads the New America Foundation’s Open Policy Institute. “Internet service providers as gatekeepers have a lot of incentives to engage in shenanigans. The threats to our ability to navigate the internet and go to every corner of it are at risk” if the Pai plan is adopted, she told a conference on Tuesday.
New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote that “the freewheeling internet has been dying a slow death” and that the FCC actions “would be the final pillow in its face.”
Senior executive vice president Bob Quinn of AT& T, one of the large broadband firms which has lobbied and sued to block earlier FCC regulatory efforts, said apocalyptic predictions are wrong.
“AT&T intends to operate its network the same way AT&T operates its network today: in an open and transparent manner,” Quinn said in a blog post last month. — AFP