Six months ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed net neutrality.
On Wednesday, the US Senate pulled a rabbit out of its hat and (attempted to) defy the FCC, voting to keep net neutrality.
On Thursday morning, pro-net neutrality politicians rejoiced. Then, we woke up to smell the coffee, and a whole lot of wishful thinking went down the drain. It’s highly unlikely that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will approve of rolling back the FCC’s repeal, and the White House has already said it’s all for scrapping net neutrality.
Even in the Senate, the keep-net neutrality vote passed by a whisker, with the help of three Republicans who broke party ranks. As Reuters reports, the 52 to 47 vote in the Senate was larger than expected, as Republicans John Kennedy, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voted with 47 Democrats and two independents to reverse the Trump administration’s action.
It’s not even clear if the House will get to vote on the issue. Representative Mike Doyle, a Democrat, said on Wednesday that he plans to launch a discharge petition to try to force a companion vote in the House.
This is what Doyle said at a press conference after the Senate passed its bill:
It’s about protecting small businesses, students, innovators, entrepreneurs and competition. These are the policies that every American benefits from, and it enables our modern economy.
That’s why I have introduced companion [a resolution under the Congressional Review Act, or CRA] in the House and I’m going to continue to work with the leadership in the House to bring this to the floor.
The CRA is 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.
In the driest of terms, net neutrality prevented service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from interfering with internet traffic, favoring their own sites and apps, jacking up rates for decent speed, and elbowing everybody else off to putter in the internet slow lane.
Critics of net neutrality, including the net neutrality ringleader, Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, along with President Trump, claim that over-regulation has been stifling innovation.
Some of our readers have put it in much juicier terms.
Laurence Marks, on all this supposedly stifled innovation:
In the last 20 months AT&T, Google Fiber, and Celito (local firm) have each run fiber through my front lawn and are inviting me to connect for Gigabit service at prices similar to or lower than what I’m currently paying for 18 Megabit service. Sounds like innovation to me.
John C, on the anti-net neutrality “disciples” who claim that nothing will change and none of the predicted changes in internet pricing/access will come to pass:
If that’s the case, why do the ISPs care about it? Obviously they want a change to the rules so they can change their practices. Duh!
You weren’t all convinced though. CppThis chimed in with:
If ISPs push too hard, customers will jump ship. Those with “gigabit” residential lines will get throttled and rerouted, but this already happens at the hardware level anyway…
Net neutrality rules are set to be rolled back on 11 June. It will be done in spite of a survey of registered voters that found that most people support bans on blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. Most, as in nearly all: A study funded by the broadband industry found that 98.5% of the unique comments (as in, not spam or form letters) on the FCC’s plan supported net neutrality.
That support is bipartisan.
jquinnjr
The simple fact is that so-called “net neutrality” is nothing less than the federal government attempting to take control over the internet and asserting that it has the right to tax and regulate it.
Give how badly the feds mess everything else up, I fail to understand why anyone would support it. Who the hell wants the internet to be managed as well as the USPS and the VA, for example?
Eric
How is this a “simple fact”? If there’s any “taking control” it’s simply asserting the long-standing “treat everything equally” (within reason) system of the internet – it’s not sitting down and saying “We’re going to watch and censor everything you do”.. it’s more telling the telecoms what they CAN’T do to their customers.
For that matter, the telecoms’ response to this has been interesting – a huge upset that anyone’s telling them what to do, along with “but we don’t do that anyway so you don’t need to tell us not to” …even though they’ve been caught at it multiple times. I’m not against reasonable network management – prioritizing VoIP (as it’s sensitive to this) and/or generally throttling massive users during peak times so everyone has passable service. But that’s not really the same as telling random internet company X that they’ll get a very slow connection unless they pay a monthly fee.
Do remember that even the classic phone networks were locked down initially until they were forced to open them – you had to rent your phone, no unapproved devices, etc. Once it was forced open and anyone could make hardware for the lines, prices dropped and products improved with competition.
Jason
As Eric said, the large ISPs have shown that they can’t be trusted to keep their word and police themselves. Why would net neutrality be any different?
As soon as they can find a way to make more money by prioritizing some content over other content it will happen. And it’s not as if we have a reasonable choice of ISPs in most of the US. If our current ISP starts throttling and we don’t like it, we can’t just “allow the market to decide” and switch to one that doesn’t. Once one company does it, the others will follow and there won’t be anything consumers can do about it. That is why we need this regulation to stay in place.
Kyle
what has the USPS ever done to you? I always get my mail on time and in good order.
Greedy corporations on the other hand screw me over every chance they get.
Max
I think you, as most other people I have encountered that are opposing net neutrality, have misunderstood something. It’s not the government controlling the internet at all. It’s the government making sure that *no one* can control the internet, including them. Those regulations are in place to make sure anyone can use the internet on the same terms regardless of what they are using it for. Net neutrality isn’t the government going “You can’t watch this”, its the government making sure that your ISP *can’t* tell you “You can’t watch this”. It’s like complaining that the government prohibits Starbucks from putting Acid in your coffee. “How dare they regulate my cofffee!”
Mahhn
No possibility of Net Neutrality with corporate shill Ajit Pai as chairman of the FCC. In one speech he made in 2014 he said “people’s elected representatives” should make the decision, but that hasn’t stopped him from doing everything he can to oppose our elected officials on this matter.
Brian T. Nakamoto
I’m afraid that Pai technically had the correct sentiment. Congress should pass a law so that Net Neutrality is more resistant to the whims of whichever party is in control of the FCC. The fact that Pai is chairman is a direct consequence of people electing our current president. Supporters of Net Neutrality should *call* their House representative, and maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised as with the Senate.
Robert
What no one has said is the fact that the FTC is taking over “net neutrality” duties. The FTC is a much better agency to police the ISP’s than the FCC would ever be. This is merely changing agencies while allowing the smallest governmental interference, which is better for competition and lower rates. The FTC has stepped up and said it’s ready for this. MSM is feeding us all misinformation.
Brian T. Nakamoto
How is the FTC a much better agency to police the ISP’s when the Federal *Communications* Commission already has authority under current law, an experienced law enforcement bureau, and self-funding (via use taxes) to continue their mission to implement and enforce America’s communication law and regulations (paraphrased from FCC.gov)? Other than a superficial MOU between the FCC and FTC, there’s nothing that indicates the FTC can actually step up to take on a major new responsibility that the FCC has already been doing well, perhaps too well for Pai’s former employer.
Robert
Having the FCC regulate internet provides the high, difficult entry barrier that the established players want. It stifles their competition. Regulations only become more burdensome over time. The FTC has all of the tools available that the FCC has, and more. Removing regulations will encourage competition and innovation. At first, I was against this, until I researched it for myself. We need less regulation with only over watch. Antitrust laws the FTC has will work just fine while opening the door for innovation. We need this.
Brian T. Nakamoto
It’s dubious to state that “The FTC has all of the tools available that the FCC has, and more.” Declassifying ISP’s as common carriers, and failing to provide the FTC with additional funding de facto eliminates two currently available tools. I think this is where we agree to disagree :) if you believe that less regulation is better for consumers in this case. Applying Title II to the Internet helps foster competition and innovation by keeping the largest ISP’s in check for their track record of monopolistic transgressions of Net Neutrality principles that don’t necessarily violate antitrust law.