FCC vs ISPs: Upcoming Net Neutrality Vote a Moment of Truth, or Just the Beginning of Another Fight?
About one month from now on February 26, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on new Open Internet rules that govern Internet Service Providers. But what looks like the moment of truth for Net Neutrality debate may be just the beginning of more quarrelling between ISPs and the FCC.
The upcoming FCC vote will decide how the independent agency will oversee the way the Internet is delivered to consumers across the U.S., and the momentum seems to be in the favor of advocates of Net Neutrality -- the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by ISPs, delivered at the same speeds with no preferential treatment deals allowed for sites and services willing to pay extra.
It's been a long road to the February vote -- with middle-of-the-road proposals from Wheeler that sparked a flood of public criticism and several delays in the rule-making process -- but from what Wheeler has recently said at the Consumer Electronics Show, it appears he now supports the strong regulations President Obama advocated, afforded by the so-called Title II option.
"We're going to propose rules that say no blocking, no throttling, paid prioritization -- all that list of issues -- and that there is a yardstick against which behavior should be measured," said Wheeler at CES, as reported by The L.A. Times.
While Wheeler isn't likely to move to treat ISPs as utilities -- the strongest Title II approach advocated by Obama -- the FCC is expected to also vote on Net Neutrality-related proposals, such as upgrading the official definition of "broadband" from the current 4 Mbps downstream (less than Uruguay's average speed) to 25 Mbps, which is faster than the current average connection speed of any country in the world.
A higher standard would allow the FCC to put pressure on ISPs to invest in more broadband, as part of its job description -- even under the so-called "light" regulations under Section 706 -- to determine if the expansion of broadband is happening fast enough.
ISPs are not happy, and neither are many Republicans. Verizon has argued that if the FCC takes the Title II approach, it would be "harmful to wireless broadband," which developed outside of that regulatory structure. Comcast weighed in with a filing late 2014 saying that it would "not only be harmful," but also "completely unnecessary," according to the L.A. Times.
Conservative advocates are also arguing that the new FCC Open Internet rules would cost an estimate of $15 billion for taxpayers. However, the Washington Post's fact checker blog rated the claim three "Pinocchios" out of four for factual inaccuracy. And just last week, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, cable's largest industry group, wrote the FCC last week saying that its proposed new standard for broadband "dramatically [exaggerates] the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user."
Advocates of Net Neutrality "Battle for the Net" are also making a last-minute push for their side of the debate, even though it appears to be winning. A new "Countdown" campaign on the web in an attempt to keep public awareness of Net Neutrality up, after the flood of popular support last summer grew large and fast enough to crash the FCC's servers at one point.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are taking a different approach. Some Republican lawmakers are proposing legislation that would instate a few Net Neutrality rules, while circumventing any FCC decision, and according to The Verge, largely relegating the agency to the sidelines of Internet governance in the future.
ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast have expressed support for action to come from (the Republican-majority) Congress instead of the FCC, while threatening another deluge of lawsuits challenging the FCC's authority if Title II is enacted in any measure.
Just as a reminder, it was a court victory by Verizon over the old FCC rules around this time last year that set this whole kerfuffle into motion in the first place. And so while this February might just be the end of the current Net Neutrality debate, it could also be the beginning of another cycle of court challenges, in what seems to be an Ouroboros-like eternal fight between the FCC and ISPs.