Net neutrality laws will be reintroduced by the FCC

 Net neutrality laws will be reintroduced by the FCC

In an effort to revive "net neutrality" restrictions for the broadband business and the ongoing discussion about the future of the internet, the US government wants to reinstate strict controls for high-speed internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.

According to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the new rules will classify internet service as "essential telecommunications" comparable to traditional telephone services, including both the wired type found in homes and businesses and mobile data on cellphones. Internet service providers (ISPs) will be prohibited by the regulations from preventing or restricting access to websites and online content.

The draft rules aim to prevent ISPs from selectively speeding up service to preferred websites or to those that agree to pay extra fees, in addition to prohibiting the blocking and throttling of internet traffic, according to Rosenworcel. This is done to avoid the emergence of "fast lanes" on the internet that could give some websites a paid edge over others.

With its proposal from Tuesday, the FCC seeks to reinstate rules from the Obama administration that were pushed back under Republican control during the Trump administration.

However, internet service providers who have spent years fighting earlier iterations of the laws in court are certain to strongly object to the proposal.

Rosenworcel's justification for the laws

Beyond their immediate effects on internet service providers, Rosenworcel said the draft rules directly assist US telecom regulators in addressing a variety of consumer issues in the long term by enabling the FCC to use its most potent legal weapons. Spam robotexts, internet outages, digital privacy, and high-speed internet access are among of the priorities the FCC could address after the implementation of net neutrality rules, according to Rosenworcel, who made the announcement in a speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday.

Internet service providers would be regulated under Title II of the FCC's congressional mandate if they were reclassified as important telecommunications enterprises, according to Rosenworcel. This would provide the FCC stronger authority to impose future rules affecting anything from public safety to national security.

According to Rosenworcel, "without revision, the FCC has limited authority for incorporating updated cybersecurity standards into our network policies."

She continued by saying that while traditional telephone companies are currently prohibited from selling user data, ISPs are not subject to the same regulations. Do you actually understand that? Do we want our internet providers to sell information about our online activities and where we go?

Given that spammers are "constantly evolving their techniques," Rosenworcel said the FCC should regulate internet service providers with the most potent weapons at its disposal.

Furthermore, she claimed that by allowing internet service providers to mount their infrastructure on telephone poles, the proposed regulations may advance the Biden administration's goal of supplying the entire nation with quick, affordable broadband.

After the pandemic, "as a nation, we are committed to building broadband for all," she declared. So keep in mind that utility poles are crucial when building these facilities.

The FCC will decide on October 19 whether to move the draft rules forward and ask the public for feedback before drafting any final rules.

An update on net neutrality

According to Rosenworcel, net neutrality regulations are more important than ever because of the Covid-19 outbreak, which made reliable internet connection crucial for millions of Americans. Rosenworcel also said that a solitary, uniform national norm for net neutrality might provide businesses with the assurance they need to accelerate efforts to cover the country with quick, reasonably priced broadband.

However, Rosenworcel's initiative has already sparked a massive backlash from internet service providers, one of the most potent and well-funded organizations in Washington.

The proposal could also result in more of what has made net neutrality a household term over the past ten years: late-night segments by comedians like John Oliver and Stephen Colbert; physical protests, including ones at the FCC's offices and the home of its chair; accusations of fabricated, AstroTurfed public comments; assertions of cyberattacks; and even threats of violence.

One of Rosenworcel's first projects after Anna Gomez was confirmed by the US Senate this month as the agency's fifth commissioner, ending a years-long 2-2 partisan deadlock at the FCC that had prevented contentious initiatives from moving forward, the latest net neutrality rulemaking reflects one of the most visible efforts of her chairmanship.

The proposed regulations also demonstrate how the ongoing absence of federal legislation to provide a uniform national net neutrality standard has resulted in ISP regulations that continue to vary with each political administration as well as a patchwork of state laws that attempt to fill the gap.

The FCC draft would be available for public comment until about mid-December if it were approved next month, and then there would be a chance for public responses until January. The next months might see a vote on the final set of rules.

Strong regulations that could stop ISPs from obstructing the free flow of information on the internet with arbitrary or commercially motivated traffic rules have been demanded for years by consumer advocacy groups.

ISPs, on the other hand, have long contended that websites like search engines and video streaming websites, which consume significant amounts of a network's capacity, should be charged for the network demand that their users create. It is rumored that such a proposition is being considered by European Union officials.

A broadband policy third rail

Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, the act that gave the FCC its congressional authorization to regulate legacy telephone lines, is what has come to be known as the third rail of US broadband policy, and the FCC is once again touching it in its attempt to resurrect the agency rules.

The attempt to regulate ISPs under Title II in Tuesday's plan would give the FCC clearer ability to enact regulations prohibiting website blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. According to the sources, the proposed regulations are very similar to those that the FCC adopted in 2015. In 2016, a federal appeals court in Washington maintained the regulations in the face of an industry lawsuit.

However, shortly after that decision, Donald Trump was elected president, prompting him to choose Ajit Pai, one of the FCC's Republican commissioners at the time, as its head. One of Pai's first moves as agency head was to suggest rolling back the previous net neutrality regulations. In 2017, the FCC decided to change the regulations. Pai made the case that doing so would encourage more private investment in broadband networks and release the sector from onerous regulation. 2018 saw the repeal come into force.

Since then, ISPs have avoided engaging in the blocking and preferential treatment that proponents of net neutrality have warned may happen, but Rosenworcel's proposal shows how worries about that possibility have lingered.

The FCC's proposal to restore net neutrality restrictions for broadband providers received high praise from the Biden administration on Tuesday.

President Biden supports net neutrality, which prevents big businesses from dictating what information you can access online or from charging you more for certain content, according to Hannah Garden-Monheit, the president's special assistant for economic policy. "Today's announcement shows the importance of the president's push to restore competition in our economy and represents a significant step forward for American consumers and small businesses."

Renewal of the front lines

The George W. Bush administration published some of the first principles for an open internet, which sparked attempts at concrete regulation by the FCC in 2010 and again in 2015.

The telecom and cable industries have long opposed using Title II to regulate broadband, claiming that it would be an example of government overreach, that regulations based on telephone technology are inapplicable to digital technologies, and that it would deter private investment in broadband networks, making it more difficult for Americans to access the internet.

A well-known industry trade group, USTelecom, issued a statement on Tuesday calling the treatment of broadband as a Title II utility "a dangerous and expensive solution in search of a problem." "Congress must intervene in this crucial matter and put an end to this regulatory ping-pong match. The future of the accessible, dynamic internet we currently use is in jeopardy.

Given that the Supreme Court has increasingly used the "major questions" approach to review federal agency efforts, the reference to net neutrality as a "major question" provides hints about potential future litigation surrounding the idea.

Rosenworcel mentioned the upcoming opposition in her speech on Tuesday, as well as earlier occurrences involving proponents of strict net neutrality regulations.

I fully anticipate that this process may get chaotic at times, Rosenworcel stated. "In the past, whenever this topic was discussed, [previous Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] and his family received death threats. That is totally reprehensible, and I thank the police for bringing the person responsible for these threats to account. To stop a vote at the organization, a phony bomb threat was called in. We had demonstrators preventing [former Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler] from getting to his car in his driveway. We observed a sneaky campaign to discredit a nominee for the agency who supported net neutrality.

But the classification of ISPs as Title II providers meant that the agency might conceivably try to set rates for internet service directly, a situation that ISPs widely feared but that the FCC in 2015 committed not to do. This is part of what made the FCC's 2015 rules particularly contentious.

The people claimed that Tuesday's proposal upholds the same commitment by refraining from 26 Title II provisions and more than 700 additional intrusive administrative policies. According to the sources, the draft rules also forbid the FCC from requiring ISPs to unbundle their networks and share them with other internet service providers.

Along with the vehement industry opposition shown in the FCC's commenting process, the proposal may result in legal actions being taken against the FCC. The draft comes as the Supreme Court is moving to reevaluate the power of federal agencies by scrutinizing courts' decades-long deference to their expert authority, even though the 2015 net neutrality rules were upheld on appeal, suggesting the current FCC may be on solid ground to issue the current proposed rules.