The Commission will draft regulations for these “interconnection agreements” where content providers like Netflix pay broadband service providers for fast, reliable delivery of their content while ensuring the principle that all broadband traffic should be treated equally.
While there are indications that the new rules will protect Net Neutrality, advocates for a level online playing field warn that powerful lobbying interests may still find a way to allow ISPs to charge for “fast-lane” service, which would give powerful, well-funded, existing companies an advantage over smaller, newer, online operations.
— Free Press (@freepress) January 26, 2015
A coalition of internet policy advocates has launched an Internet Countdown. They’re calling the February vote on these new rules “the most important FCC vote ever.”
“[M]onopolistic cable companies are pouring millions into a last ditch effort to derail the FCC's historic vote,” the Fight for the Future website warns. “Help us flood Washington, DC with calls and emails to show lawmakers that the whole Internet is watching, and we're literally counting down the seconds until we get real net neutrality.”
— Lydia Beyoud (@ElleBeyoud) January 29, 2015
Popular Support for Net Neutrality
Last year, when it looked like the FCC was going to bow to pressure from ISPs wanting to charge for preferential service, a groundswell of popular protest, including “internet slowdowns” at major websites in September, turned the tide.
The response the FCC received from the public was the largest in their history and “less than 1 percent of comments were clearly opposed to net neutrality,” according to a Sunlight Foundation analysis.
President Obama came out on the side of Net Neutrality and told the FCC, “I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act,” a move which broadband providers bitterly oppose.
The GOP Alternative
A recent poll suggests no real partisan rift overall on the issue of Net Neutrality, concluding that “Support was the same among Republican respondents, as with voters over all, with 81 percent agreeing that the Internet should remain open.”
But Republicans in Congress oppose the reclassification of ISPs and to preempt a move in that direction, are proposing an industry-backed bill of their own. It would provide protections against the creation of “fast lanes” but limit the FCC’s ability to regulate broadband providers like utilities.
FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, however, expressed skepticism about the GOP effort:
"Obviously the Congress is the Congress," he said in a press conference Thursday. "They can write whatever rules they want to write, and we respect that ability of theirs. But I think we're at a fork in the road. The question is: Whose Internet is it?”
— John Hendel (@JohnHendel) January 29, 2015
“I will propose new open Internet protections that do not allow blocking, throttling, paid prioritization and any other discriminatory practice, while also establishing a sustainable structure to address broadband issues in the future,” Wheeler added, enumerating some of the principal points advocates and the White House have pushed for.
The FCC will vote on the new rules on February 26.
