Quit Whining About Net Neutrality
April 25 will be quite the day. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on former President Trump’s claim to be immune from everything. And the Democratic-majority Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will revive one of the most pro-business regulations ever enacted. Naturally, Republicans objected.
At their April 25 meeting, the Commission will revive the Open Internet rules that are commonly known by the alliterative shorthand of Net Neutrality. One could also call them the Equal Opportunity Internet rules. The point of the rules is to bring some measure of accountability to an industry that has little.
Calling the rules “pro-business” may shock some of the opponents today, but history is on that side. People forget today’s Internet was born when content like America Online, or CompuServe or even bulletin boards, was delivered over phone lines that were regulated under the Communications Act. That meant that as the online world developed, the phone companies couldn’t play favorites. As a result, the smallest service had the same opportunity to reach its customers as did the largest without the phone company tipping the scales. In today’s world, which means that traffic to and from Home Depot is the same as traffic to and from my local hardware store. Similarly, Home Depot and Lowe’s would be treated the same.
That’s pro-business. Unfortunately, many Republicans and other opponents define “pro-business” as only tending to the interests the companies that provide Internet access, like the phone and cable companies, which leaves literally every other business out of the picture.
The rules are a far cry from Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s characterization as “President Biden’s plan is to increase government control of the Internet.” To use a term common in some legal circles, the rules the FCC will enact are a form of “originalism,” in that not only do the rules have a history going back to the beginning of the telecom industry in the U.S., they also go back centuries when applied to other industries.
But Carr and the other opponents see “the Internet” not as a widespread collection of organizations, companies and people, but only in terms of the fates of the telecom companies.
(Even if Carr were right, and his definition is suspect, Republicans also like to control the Internet, if in different ways. Many GOP legislators have introduced bills that in one way or another assert control over content, whether for laudable purposes, like protecting children from pornography, or prohibiting schools that received Federal assistance from accessing social media.)
Don’t feel bad for the theoretically threatened telecom companies. They are experiencing the best of all worlds. They have none of the responsibilities they formerly had, and yet get to collect billions of dollars from the government for what they should be doing anyway — providing universal service at reasonable rates.
All of this largesse is possible due to regulatory decisions made 20 years ago, when the then-FCC decided that the nascent broadband service shouldn’t be regulated like the regular telephone service on which the online world was built. In those “information superhighway” days, the thought was that rules had to be loosened to enable the industry to develop.
Develop the companies did, on their terms. Taxpayers are footing the bill now. The government is spending billions of dollars in corporate welfare to reimburse telecom companies for building out their networks. And yet, according to Broadband Now research, as many as 42 million people don’t have access to the high-speed networks that have for years replaced the old telephone service as the main method of communications.
Nor is there any regulation of rates. The government is spending billions more to subsidize broadband rates, with the money going right back to the telecom companies. Programs like the Emergency Broadband Benefit and Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) are needed because otherwise many of those with access to broadband couldn’t afford it. The infrastructure bill signed by President Biden in 2021 included $65 billion for assorted broadband supports. One company, Charter Communications, was reported to have collect from the ACP which is running out of money. Even with all the construction subsidies, there is no guarantee that rates for consumers would go lower.
As the Washington Post reported, the companies are also actively lobbying against rules proposed in states that would lower rates even further for customers with low incomes. The companies can’t be inconvenienced as they collect their billions from the government. It’s another version of “voting no and taking the dough.”
Even as they collect that money, companies are actively campaigning to be relieved of their last vestiges of public responsibility, that of being relieved of being a “carrier of last resort.” The latest is in California, although the campaign has been going on successfully for the telecom companies for years as consumers are worried about being stranded without service.
The rules the FCC will eventually implement have the potential to bring some semblance of the public interest back to the telecom sector so they can also shoulder some public responsibility. Net Neutrality is the place to start.
