Both sides in Net neutrality fight make their cases as FCC vote nears
Opponents are hoping to make a stand against the Federal Communication Commission’s plan to overturn Net neutrality rules, saying the revisions would hurt consumers and business alike.
“This vote will negatively impact small- and medium-sized Internet business and has the potential to decrease jobs and economic growth systemwide,” said Christian Dawson, executive director of i2Coalition, which includes Amazon and Google.
If the FCC’s proposed rules are passed, it would be seen as a victory for big telecom and cable companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, which provide broadband connections to more than 94.5 million U.S. homes, according to Leichtman Research Group. It would overturn the so-called Net neutrality regulations that went into effect during the Obama administration.
The Republican-controlled FCC is expected to vote Dec. 14.
Opponents are concerned that telecom and cable companies would have preferential benefit to their services and content — leaving others at a disadvantage. Those trying to thwart the FCC’s plan include consumer interest groups, congressional Democrats and a wide range of Internet-based companies, also including Facebook and Netflix.
Proponents tout the FCC’s plan as a tempered form of Net neutrality.
“This proposal is not the end of Netneutrality rules,” said David Cohen, Comcast’s chief diversity officer and a senior executive vice president, in a statement.
The new rules would require Internet service providers to disclose any blocking or prioritization of their own content or from a partner. The 2015 rules prohibited blocking content or giving preference. States are also prohibited from enacting their own laws that would conflict with the FCC regulations.
This FCC transparency requirement and the re-establishment of the Federal Trade Commission to oversee broad- band services would provide “the authority to take action against any (provider) which does not make its open Internet practices clearly known to consumers and, if needed, enforce against any anti-competitive or deceptive practices,” Cohen said.
The FCC’s proposal also rescinds an “Internet Conduct Standard” that was intended to protect consumers. That standard “micromanaged innovative business models,” the FCC now says.
Current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed to the post by President Trump, voted against those rules as a commissioner and has championed another strategy: fewer regulations to free up Internet service providers to better invest and innovate.
Congress could solve the flip-flopping of FCC strategies with updated Internet legislation, an idea championed by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “While I support Chairman Pai’s efforts as an improvement, I still strongly believe the only way to create long-term certainty for the Internet ecosystem is for Congress to pass a bipartisan law,” he said last week.
The new rules went much further than expected and could be designed to spur Congress to act, say analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson of New York tech research firm Moffett Nathanson in a research note Wednesday. Passage of the new rules will create “a crisis that Congress would feel compelled to address,” they said. The result could be a bipartisan bill, they say. “These changes will likely be so immensely unpopular that it would be shocking if they are allowed to stand for long.”
The new rules would require Internet service providers to disclose any blocking or prioritization of their own content or from a partner. The 2015 rules prohibited blocking content or giving preference.