FCC chief calls net neutrality a ‘slam dunk’
Appeals court decision upholds agency’s open Internet rules
You can forgive Tom Wheeler for being in a good mood.
Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial net neutrality rules adopted in a consequential move made during Wheeler’s reign as FCC chairman. The decision, which followed two previous rulings by the court overturning similar rules, was a rejoinder to Wheeler’s many powerful critics.
It also helped clear the way for the agency to move forward on other contentious topics, most notably efforts to establish privacy rules for broadband providers and to open up the cable set-top box market to meaningful competition.
Wheeler met with this newspaper while in Palo Alto last week visiting Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. He spoke about the net neutrality decision, the commission’s upcoming agenda and his legacy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q What’s your take on the court decision in the net neutrality case? You must be pretty excited about that. A It was a slam dunk. It was a forceful decision. And a very complete and thorough decision. I mean, they addressed every issue. And, obviously,
we’re very happy. Q Is there anything that stands out for you about the decision? A Even the dissent said we have the authority to do this. He didn’t like the way we did it, but he said, “Yeah, you can do this.” That’s significant. Q The telecom companies have said they will appeal the decision. Is there anything about the decision that is worrisome for you? A Just the opposite. It strikes me that this was a decision that was written with such precision that they knew they were talking to the next level as well, and wanted to address every issue. Q Does this decision open up any new avenues for you or change what you might have had planned? A We were operating on the assumption that this would be a positive decision, and I think in many ways it puts wind in our sails to continue on. Q One issue on your agenda is the settop box proposal. There was an effort five or six years ago to do something like this, and that went by the wayside. What’s pressing now about trying to get this in place? A Congress was explicit in the Communications Act about set-top boxes. It doesn’t say, “the commission may.” It says, “the commission shall” have competitive navigation devices. Yet 99 percent of consumers don’t have any choice.
The difficulty heretofore was basically technological. We are now at a point in time where everything is moving to software, whether it be the software on boxes or the software in apps, that suddenly, the ability to have this kind of competitive choice in navigation devices becomes technically possible. And so we need to seize the initiative. Q Another big item on the FCC agenda is broadband privacy. While many consumer groups support that effort, some of them have objected to Google and Facebook being exempted, arguing those companies pose a greater threat to privacy than broadband providers. Why are they exempt? A One is we don’t have any jurisdiction over websites and services. The FTC has that jurisdiction.
Second is that your broadband provider knows everything you’re doing on every site. I can decide I don’t like what Google is collecting on me and switch to Bing or something else or go to Firefox or whatever the case may be. But as a consumer of internet access service, I don’t have any choice. Sixty-two percent of all households in America have one choice in who provides their high-speed internet access service.
You’ve got a situation where you’ve got an entity that has ubiquitous access to the most personal information, including your location information and what you do on every site that you go to. And you have the historical expectation that people have been raised to expect with their networks that the network isn’t going to collect information about you and resell it. We’re saying before they do it, they have to ask your permission. Q There will be a new president in January and likely a new FCC chairperson. What do you see as your legacy? A I feel blessed that I get to have this job at this point in history, because technology is changing so rapidly. The nature of networks is changing so rapidly. And how society through its governmental structure reacts to that is something that I get to be involved in. Wow! It doesn’t get much better than that. And I’ll let what we’ve done speak for itself.
And we’ll just push on. I keep saying to everybody, “We’re going to run through the tape.” We’ve got a few months left here, and we will be churning hard on the last day.