FCC Chairman Outlines Plan to Reclassify Broadband, Remove Net Neutrality Rules (Apr 26, 2017)

This has been in the offing for weeks, with lots of reporting since Ajit Pai took over as FCC Chair about his intentions to dismantle net neutrality regulations, but today it finally become official with a speech by Pai outlining his proposed approach. For now, all that will happen is that the FCC will tomorrow publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining plans to reclassify broadband services as Title I, and inviting public comment. The significance of that is that the 2015 reclassification of broadband as Title II was what enabled the agency to pass net neutrality rules which stood up in court, so reversing that decision would also remove the net neutrality regulations. What Pai didn’t do in his speech today was outline how net neutrality rules, which he says he broadly supports, would be enforced going forward, though reporting has suggested he favors handing enforcement to the FTC with providers drawing up voluntary codes of conduct. The providers themselves, meanwhile, have been piping up in praise of the proposal while reiterating their commitment to a version of net neutrality they can live with: not blocking or degrading competing traffic. Once again, how you feel about all this depends on what you think net neutrality should mean: if you agree with that basic definition from the providers, things should be fine, but if you think it should also mean no paid prioritization, no zero rating, and so on, then you’ll have a problem with how this plays out. Pai’s fundamental argument here is that the providers were largely self-regulating before the rules, and that they will be again. The counterargument is that the threat of rules was enough to keep the carriers in line without them, and with rules eliminated and no immediate prospect of their reintroduction, carriers would be emboldened to push the limits in a way they weren’t in 2015. Also, as I argued a few weeks back, though the proposal released tomorrow will be up for public comment, I wouldn’t expect it to change much in the face of even very strong negative feedback.

via Recode (see also Pai’s speech (PDF) on the FCC website)


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