USA TODAY International Edition
How Net-neutrality repeal affects you
New rules would allow Internet providers to block or slow any website, app
How will you know if the repeal of Net neutrality rules is slowing down your favorite TV streaming show? It will take some sleuthing.
The Federal Communications Commission’s proposed repeal of the current “open Internet” regulations would free Internet service providers to do all the things the FCC banned in 2015. Your ISP could block or slow any legal site, app or service or charge it for priority handling of its data — but it would still have to disclose that conduct.
The idea behind that transparency mandate is to keep Internet providers subject to two forms of discipline.
At a minimum, broadband customers could check to see if a wired or wireless provider would hinder a site they like. The draft of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposed order, posted Wednesday, suggests that public pressure alone would push an ISP to back down from any such interference, citing AT&T’s quick 2012 retreat from blocking Apple’s FaceTime app.
Further, an ISP that either interfered with a site in undocumented ways or tried to suppress a competitor to one of its own services would risk an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC can investigate “unfair or deceptive” conduct and seek civil penalties for it. Major Internet providers such as Comcast have repeated earlier pledges not to block or throttle content, although statements such as Comcast’s vow not to “discriminate against lawful content” leave rhetorical space for charging more for an Internet fast lane.
That would leave consumers as the first line of defense.
And the plan by the man President Trump picked last winter to head the FCC also pulls back from current Netneutrality protections in two ways.
First, it doesn’t require disclosure of everything covered by the 2015 rules, including addressing network-to-network “interconnection” arrangements that govern how large volumes of data get shipped between the likes of Netflix and ISPs.
Remember when Netflix became unwatchable for months over such providers as Comcast and Verizon? ISPs would not have to document the traffic deals that can make a high-traffic site responsive or not, and which of today’s rules let the FCC regulate under an open-ended “general conduct” provision.
Second, an Internet provider wouldn’t have to post its disclosure statement in a particular place or in a particular format. The proposed order gives an ISP a choice: It can publish that document “on a publicly available, easily accessible website” — that’s supposed to be the one at where you’d actually sign up for service — or it can provide that information to the FCC, at which point it will be up to broadband shoppers to remember to check there.
Neither possibility specifies a consistent listing of a provider’s policies along the lines of the nutrition label-style disclosures the FCC proposed last year. As you may have noticed the last time you attempted to digest a terms-of-service agreement from a social network, not every company is equally straightforward in explaining its policies.
But even maximum clarity from an Internet provider about its handling of individual sites won’t help you much if you can’t switch from that company to a competitor.
The FCC’s own stats, based on data provided by ISPs, suggest your choices dwindle as your desired download speeds increase.
As of June 30, 2106, the most recent data published, 79% of developed U.S. census blocks had at least two providers offering downloads of at least 10 megabits per second, 42% had two or more selling 25 Mbps downloads, and only 12% had a minimum of two options for 100 Mbps service.