Last month, millions of Americans returned to work after spending time with family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday. Amid the travel and meal preparations, many may have missed the “pre-holiday news dump” when, on the eve of Thanksgiving, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Ajit Pai, released his 200-plus page proposal to dismantle the agency’s open internet protections.
Commonly referred to as “net neutrality”, what is at stake is the ability of consumers and businesses to reach the online applications and services of their choosing without interference from their broadband provider. This has been a bipartisan bedrock principle in America for more than a decade, it was upheld in court last year, and it has existed all the while investment by broadband providers continues to grow.
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What is net neutrality?
Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) treat everyone’s data equally – whether that’s an email from your mother, a bank transfer or a streamed episode of Stranger Things. It means that ISPs, which control the delivery pipes, don’t get to choose which data is sent more quickly, or which sites get blocked or throttled (for example, slowing the delivery of a TV show because it is streamed by a video company that competes with a subsidiary of the ISP) or who has to pay extra. For this reason, some have described net neutrality as the “first amendment of the internet”.
Why is net neutrality under threat?
On 14 December 2017, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to scrap regulations protecting net neutrality in America. In a 3-2 vote, the commission repealed the rules, which had been introduced by the Obama administration in 2015 to replace the patchwork of authorisations that had previously regulated the internet.
In response, a number of states vowed to introduce their own state-wide protections of net neutrality.
Who benefits from the FCC ruling?
The most obvious beneficiaries are the large ISPs, who frequently have local monopolies and have now been handed the ability to discriminate between their own services and those of competitors, and charge other companies for access or bandwidth.
But larger internet companies, such as Google or Facebook, are also likely to benefit from the decision. They stand little risk of being blocked or throttled, given how unpopular such a move would be, and can afford to pay access fees. They would also benefit from the reduced competition from smaller firms and startups, who are at risk of discrimination from ISPs.
Are there implications outside of the US?
Other nations have their own net neutrality regulations. The EU, for instance, passed a directive in 2016 guarding some key tenets of net neutrality, although allowing some controversial practices, such as "zero-rating" – declaring some sites free for the purposes of data limits.
But globally, internet users will experience the indirect effects of the US decision, since its impact on the competitive market within America's borders will ripple around the world. For some, that could even be positive: if new startups can't get traction in the US, they may decide to relocate elsewhere.
This rollback is incredibly problematic for the American people. If you care about openness and transparency; if you care about enhanced opportunity, whether it is our access to online services or opportunities to build infrastructure, particularly in rural communities where there are serious economic, technological and infrastructure divides; then what the majority on the FCC are poised to vote to do is cause for concern. It is against our founding principles of freedom of expression and openness. All of these things will be at risk if we move ahead on 14 December and do what the FCC majority has proposed. It is why I believe the chairman should immediately withdraw his proposal.
When I joined the FCC in 2009, as one of the agency’s five commissioners, Netflix’s streaming video service had been around for just two years. Tumblr was still a relatively new player and Spotify was still two years away from launching in the US. These companies have seen tremendous growth and their continued success depends on an ability to reach their customers without discriminatory interference by the nation’s largest broadband providers.
This has not always been the case. Broadband providers tell us to trust them – that they have no interest in engaging in anti-consumer or anti-competitive practices. But the record contains many real-world examples in which broadband providers have blocked lawful applications, such as when several wireless providers blocked Google Wallet in favor of these providers’ own affiliated app. Net neutrality principles were established at the FCC as far back as 2004 to prevent exactly this type of bad behavior.
In the nearly seven months since the FCC chairman launched his plans to roll back net neutrality, the public outcry has been loud and fierce. I traveled the country to take part in town halls in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Marietta, Ohio, to hear what consumers and small businesses had to say about the proposed rollback. The resounding refrain was disappointment.
Most recently, I took part in a round table discussion in Brooklyn, New York. I heard from micro-businesses about what an open internet has meant for them economically as well as the benefits that have come from being able to spend more time with their families. They told me that they wouldn’t have the financial resources to pay a toll imposed by their broadband providers and are fearful of what rolling back the clock will mean for their futures.
My fellow commissioners would benefit from hosting their own public forums and listening to the concerns raised by consumers and small businesses. Doing so would allow them to hear first-hand what it means for people to access the internet without fear that their broadband providers will slow down or block their favorite online applications and services. My colleagues would benefit from hearing concerns about broadband providers’ poor service, surprise price hikes, and inadequate customer support.
If the federal government is not willing to stand by these basic protections, surely states and localities will step in to fill the gap? Sadly, the chairman’s proposal tramples over the rights of these communities and will actually prevent them from adopting any related consumer protections – a slap in the face when it comes to this federal-state partnership, and an action I believe is likely unlawful and will no doubt be litigated in court.
Chairman Pai’s own bio states: “The FCC is at its best when it proceeds on the basis of consensus; good communications policy knows no partisan affiliation.” I agree. In practice, though, this is not the approach the chairman has chosen to take on more than a dozen actions this year that directly harm consumers and small businesses, including opening the door to massive media consolidation and weakening a program designed to provide low-income Americans with affordable phone and broadband service.
The FCC’s public comment process was established for a reason, and through that mechanism millions of comments have been filed by the public, with the vast majority of legitimate, unique filers opposing the rollback of net neutrality. This jibes with a public opinion poll released just this week showing that 83% of Americans do not support the FCC majority’s repeal proposal.
The majority of the legitimate commenters that have participated in this process are clearly in favor of keeping our rules on the books. But the majority of the FCC commissioners are not listening to those people: they are listening to a handful of multibillion-dollar businesses and those who are cheering them on. So clearly I expect them to vote on the side of eliminating choice and certainty, and weakening consumer legal protections.
Consumers and small businesses count on the FCC to be the standard bearer when it comes to upholding and protecting the public interest. We ought to listen to what the American people are saying. We must stand up, speak out and work to ensure that the internet remains a platform for innovation and free expression in the decades to come.
- Mignon Clyburn is a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission. This piece was adapted from a post on Medium.