Net neutrality: It looks a lot like 2014
FCC may have hit rewind on service provider rules
You might be preparing for 2018, but for the Federal Communications Commission, the Internet is about to rewind four years.
Scrapping Obama-era rules governing Internet service providers would return the Internet to 2014, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said when announcing the controversial repeal of Net-neutrality regulations early this month. These rules, designed to prevent anti-competitive behavior by the companies that deliver broadband to U.S. homes, were too onerous and stymied investment, said the Republican appointee and the telecommunications industry that lobbied for their repeal.
The rollback already faces court challenges. But while state attorneys general battle with the agency, consumers are getting ready for a world where the restrictions facing Internet providers look similar to how they looked in 2014.
That may be the only thing that looks the same. The reality is, you can’t truly turn back the clock on the Internet.
For one thing, so much of the Internet landscape has shifted since the 2015 rules were adopted. We’re more wedded to broadband, which is coming from wireless carriers as well as big Internet service providers and cable companies.
Some 82% of U.S. homes have broadband, up from 76% in 2012, according to Leichtman Research Group. A smartphone, and not at-home broadband, is the route to online content for 12% of adult Americans, up from 8% in 2013, according to Pew Research Center data.
Increasingly, a consumer may go to one company for both broadband, wireless and the TV shows and movies he watches on phones and TVs.
In 2015, AT&T acquired satellite payTV provider DirecTV, and the former telephone giant now is looking to buy CNN parent Time Warner, a content deal that faces a March Justice Department court challenge.
Internet and TV cable provider Comcast, which became full owner of NBCUniversal in 2013, added DreamWorks Animation last year. Cable provider Charter Communications has grown its subscriber base to 23.8 million broadband customers since its acquisition last year of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Verizon (wireless, cable and landlines) this year closed its deal for Yahoo.
Then and now, that dual role of broadband and content provider had many experts concerned that a new era without Net-neutrality rules could result in the consumer paying higher prices — and being denied access to a full menu of content choices.
At the February 2015 FCC meeting when the so-called Net-neutrality rules were passed, then-Chairman Tom Wheeler said the protections were needed because “broadband providers have both the economic incentive and the technological capability to abuse their gatekeeper position.”
Broadband providers own even more studios, networks and websites than they did three years ago.
FCC chairman Pai, who was among those dissenting during the 2015 vote, shrugs off those concerns.
“Americans will still be able to access the websites they want to visit,” Pai said just before the FCC vote to overturn the 2015 Open Internet rules.
ISPs and Internet content providers are expected to continue upgrading their speeds and offerings, and prices have predictably risen along with the quality. But the potential for ISPs to prioritize content and increase prices has likely increased, industry observers say.
The new rules, which will go into effect in January or early February after their publication in the Federal Register, require ISPs to disclose any blocking, throttling or prioritization of their own content or from their partners, but they aren’t prevented from doing so. ISPs say they won’t block or throttle legal websites, though they’ve left open the option of charging more for some.
However, “if there is a rogue actor out there that does do something, there is not going to be a remedy,” said Marc Martin, an attorney at Washington, D.C.-based law firm Perkins Coie. “That’s the problem.”
The new rules will go into effect in January or early February after their publication in the Federal Register.