FCC Expected To Push For Net Neutrality

New FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez

The FCC moved last week to reinstate "net neutrality," a legal principle requiring that internet service providers treat all data equally and not discriminate based on their source or destination.

Net neutrality has long been a goal of the Biden administration and liberal activists. Here is what to know about the push:

The simple reason the commission is moving on net neutrality now, more than two years into President Joe Biden's tenure, is that Biden was finally successful earlier this month in gaining Senate confirmation for a fifth commissioner, Anna Gomez.

With Gomez, the commission now has a majority under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel that favors reinstating net neutrality. That would involve classifying broadband internet as a "common carrier" under Title II of the Communications Act of 1984, meaning that internet service providers would be treated as telecom providers rather than information providers. This change in definition means that broadband providers are subject to additional rules, such as regulations preventing them from limiting access to specific websites or charging different rates for traffic to different sites.

"Political realities affect everything," Stephanie Joyce, Computer and Communications Industry Association senior vice president, told the Washington Examiner. "And without the fifth commissioner, it would have been a waste of time to take comment on an order that would have resulted in a two-two tie."

The nightmare possibilities that many Democrats and net neutrality advocates warned of in 2017 when Obama-era neutrality rules were reversed by Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, did not come to pass, and the fears of certain sites or platforms being throttled or being charged extra did not materialize.

Indeed, in her speech outlining the need for new net neutrality rules, Rosenworcel ruled out the possibility that they could involve regulation of rates charged by internet providers.

Rosenworcel laid out a few different justifications for net neutrality rules in her Tuesday announcement.

One is to set a national standard in order to avoid a patchwork of state-level rules to make compliance easier for providers. At least seven states responded to Pai's reversal of Title II by incorporating net neutrality on a state level — a development that Rosenworcel credited for the fact that the repeal of the 2015 rules didn't cause havoc.

"We are not choosing between net neutrality rules and no rules," Rosenworcel argued. "We are discussing one national standard or a patchwork of state regulations."

Another is that reclassifying the internet as a Title II service would allow the commission to take additional action against internet service providers that failed to provide for their communities. Rosenworcel noted, as an example of the need for greater regulatory powers, a moment in 2020 in which a neighborhood in Detroit lost internet for 45 days in the middle of the pandemic, and its internet service provider suffered few consequences.

A third is that the FCC needs additional authority over internet service providers for the purposes of national security, cybersecurity, and privacy. For example, the commission said in the proposed rule that internet service providers collect a significant amount of data about customers that the companies may not adequately protect, necessitating regulations. As another example, it raised the possibility that regulation might be needed to ensure that foreign actors do not gain undue influence over the physical infrastructure of the internet.