On Friday afternoon, as the time ticked down to Monday’s repeal of net neutrality, the US House of Representatives was 48 votes shy of passing a motion to save it.
So close, but so far away. Monday’s repeal will be anything but surprising.
When the Senate voted in May to restore net neutrality, it passed by a whisper after three Republicans jumped ship to vote with Democrats. The Senate’s attempt was a quixotic effort, given how unlikely it was that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would approve of rolling back the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) repeal. Plus, the White House had already made clear that it’s all for scrapping net neutrality.
But pro-net neutrality Representatives never even got the chance to vote on it.
In May, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) filed what’s known as a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA): a 1996 law that allows Congress to effectively erase certain regulatory actions by a federal agency within 60 congressional days of their enactment. CRA resolutions only require a simple majority to pass the House and Senate, meaning they can’t be filibustered, but they still need the president’s signature.
The signatures on the House motion were still coming in as of Friday, but they stalled at 170. The motion would have needed a majority of 218 representatives to force a House vote again to pass the motion, after which the petition would be sent to the president’s desk and, likely, vetoed.
On Friday, the entire Senate Democratic Caucus wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan urging him to schedule a vote on the House floor that could preserve broadband regulations.
A spokesperson for Ryan declined to comment when Ars Technica contacted his office, but that’s not surprising: the House’s Republican leadership clearly wasn’t interested in abandoning the party line in order to have the full House vote on a bill to undue FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality.
…Which is all to say that presumably, come Monday morning, when this article posts, net neutrality will be axed. What might the dawn of a net neutrality-free future hold?
Will Monday usher in an ISP feeding frenzy? Will the providers make the worst fears come true? Will service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon interfere with internet traffic so as to favor their own sites and apps? Will they jump to jack up rates for decent speed, and elbow everybody else off to putter in the internet slow lane?
If they push too hard, will users jump ship? If they do jump ship, where will they go?
One thing we can count on: the wrath of net neutrality defenders will descend on lawmakers come Monday. Mass online actions, to last throughout the summer, have been promised.
Those House legislators who didn’t sign the discharge petition can expect to become the target of what Demand Progress promised will be “a fierce summer activism campaign” ahead of the midterm elections, including “ad buys, in-district protests, small business pressure, and a flood of angry constituent phone calls.”
John
Out of interest (and given that Sophos is a UK company) – how does this affect the other 95% of the world’s population? You know, the people who don’t, actually live in the US of A.
delayedthoughtengineering
With the net being international in nature, it’s inevitable that any behavior enacted by US companies will effect international net users in a similar way, depending on if the website being accessed is within US borders or not. For example, a UK-based search engine won’t be significantly affected. However, if you access a small, US-based business, the international crowd might find them too slow to use, if they are rate-limited at the source.
International companies can co-locate their websites, so that USA companies cannot slow down the international sites. However, those big companies were never in danger, while smaller companies that are started in the USA can be snuffed out rather easily.
Anonymous
If your not in the USA you don’t matter.
Bryan
I earnestly apologize on behalf of my fellow Americans who truly believe that, but it’s neither accurate nor constructive to pretend we all carry ourselves as such. Maybe you’re anonymous because you realize that already.
mike@gmail.com
I hope that was sarcasm.
Lisa Vaas
Publications including the Verge have covered the potential ripple effects. From a November 2017 article (The Verge: “The US net neutrality fight affects the whole world”): “The countries most susceptible to being misled by the United States’ bad example in terms of internet regulation are those who treat American culture as a guiding light, as something superior to their own. I come from Bulgaria, and that’s exactly the phenomenon that’s been at play there for most of my lifetime: when the communist regime was removed in 1989, its place was taken up by a corruption-riddled economic liberalism and a deluge of American cultural exports. The first time a McDonald’s outlet opened in my nearest city, it was treated like the opening of a Michelin-starred restaurant. And yes, we have Black Friday deals even without the Thanksgiving tradition, just like most of the rest of the world.”
The writer gave India as an example: “Among the budding nations looking for a role model is India, which is still formulating its approach to net neutrality. Facebook has already trampled over net neutrality principles in the country with its zero-rated Free Basics, though the Indian authorities effectively banned the practice with a ruling last year. Where India goes from here will be of major significance for the future, given the country’s huge population and rapid growth in the number of people getting online. Could Indian net neutrality rules survive in the context of a US stripped of all net neutrality protections?”
From the perspective of how this will effect companies outside the US, The Verge’s Vlad Slavov notes that if things are more expensive here n the US, they’ll be more expensive outside of it.
It’s also worth looking to RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty for coverage on why companies outside the US could be affected. From a Dec. 15 article entitled “Explainer: Why Other Countries Care That The U.S. Ditched Net Neutrality”. It quoted Quinn McKew, deputy executive director of ARTICLE 19 in the United Kingdom:
“’It is now a question of how much, not if, freedom of expression online will be undermined around the world as a result of this shortsighted decision to enrich the entrenched near-monopolies who control Internet access in the United States.”
“For example, if a company from the Balkans, Russia, or Central Asia develops its own video-streaming service, an ISP may slow its delivery because the provider has a competing service of its own unless the company agrees to pay additional fees to have its product streamed at higher rates.”
ejhonda
Sophos sells outside of Europe, including the US. I be t they make a fair amount of their revenue from the US, too. When British-/Europe-/US-only stories don’t apply to the reader, just move on.
ExpatZ
It won’t really, the biggest effect will be the loss of some American sites and that is about it.
Those that want to continue with their international audience will move their sites outside US borders and it will be business as usual.
As usual the US thinks everything it does impacts the rest of us as well, it really doesn’t.
Billie Clubbe
“Will service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon interfere with internet traffic so as to favor their own sites and apps…”
…like Google does now and has been doing for years?
david IL
Or like Microsoft does now and have been doing for years. I am all for neutrality if it means giving people back their privacy across the board, not omitting with one sides political allies.
Jim
Market pricing, folks. That’s what this enables. Gone will be the “one size fits all” economic model. And, good riddance.
Now, I agree there will be a learning curve regarding the market economics. Price controls have just been lifted; no doubt some companies will abuse it to their advantage (remember the banking crises of 1929 and 2008?) But IMO, it will eventually stabilize to a more sustainable model than the market-control model ever could have.