Last week the Chairman of the FCC proposed the role that he sees the FCC taking in regards to the Internet and “Net Neutrality”. He has proposed giving broadband providers the ability to strike special deals with Internet companies like Netflix for preferential treatment in the “last mile” to consumers’ homes, as long as they act in a “commercially reasonable manner subject to review on a case-by-case basis.” In effect, not only would this result in the potential to create “Fast Lanes” and “Slow Lanes” of internet traffic that will cost consumers more and make it harder for new innovation on an equal footing, but it makes the FCC a regulatory body that can only react after the fact. This is not a clear solution to the Net Neutrality issue, but rather it creates a bad policy of ineffective oversight.
What Chairman Wheeler and the FCC must do is reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service under the common carrier provisions of Title II of the Communications Act. This is clearly what the court ruling that defeated net neutrality in the beginning of the year says. The FCC will only have the power to enforce net equality if it reclassifies, otherwise the courts will continue to rule against it. Chairman Wheeler’s reluctance to act is clear, and while he continues to say that reclassification remains an option, he continues to propose actions that simply will not keep the Internet open and free.
Michael Copps, an FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2011, wrote in his reaction to the court’s ruling “The time is now for the FCC to classify broadband as Title II. Without this step, we are playing fast-and-loose with the most opportunity-creating technology in all of communications history. Without this step, we are guaranteeing an Internet future of toll-booths, gatekeepers, and preferential carriage. Without this step, we stifle innovation, put consumers under the thumb of special interests, and pull the props from under the kind of rich civic dialogue that only open and non-discriminatory communications can provide.”
I urge everyone who wants to see a free and open Internet to contact their representatives and urge them to pressure the FCC to reclassify.
