News
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to classify broadband services as a Title II telecommunications service, restoring net neutrality
By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
A long-anticipated vote to restore net neutrality has forbidden internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful content.
Both the White House and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) supported the FCC’s push to restore net neutrality, which approved at their April 25 meeting.
The vote reclassified broadband as a common carrier service, and subjected broadband service to regulatory oversight in regard to consumer pricing.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) celebrated the vote and released a joint statement in the moments after the FCC’s decision.
“Net neutrality ensures advocates, activists, and organizers can freely speak their minds and voice their views,” the statement read. “Net neutrality ensures the internet remains a democratic space where commerce and communication can thrive.”
Sen. Markey and Wyden, who first proposed net neutrality bills back in 2006, said they started the fight for net neutrality more than 17 years ago.
“Despite the efforts of greedy internet service providers and big telecommunications corporations, we are delivering on the opportunity, accessibility, affordability, and empowerment that are the hallmarks of a free and open internet,” their joint statement read.
Reaction has also come in from Gigi Sohn, the executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband.
Sohn took exception to the FCC’s decision to forbear required contributions to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) and called the decision puzzling. The USF is know for funding connectivity to schools and libraries, and to rural health care facilities.
“The agency chose to make it needlessly difficult for a future FCC to reverse course, no matter how much the contribution factor might rise,” Sohn said. “‘Unforbearing’ has no precedent at the agency and would cause a political and legal firestorm.”
Sohn’s statement said it was ‘mind-boggling’ that the FCC “is now effectively shutting the door to a permanent subsidy.”
In addition to funding rural connectivity, the USF provides a $9.25 subsidy called Lifeline, which is used to fund mobile service.
Sohn said today’s action by the FCC “not only puts the future of the low-income broadband subsidy at risk, but also that of every other universal service program, including the E-Rate and Rural Health Care programs.”
A statement from Shirley Bloomfield, the CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, was released to the media shortly after the FCC’s vote.
Bloomfield said her organization is “deeply concerned” about the issues surrounding forbearance of USF obligations after the decision.
“We will need to review the item once released to determine precisely how it discusses and addresses these issues,” she said. “But it would be a missed opportunity indeed if the FCC has effectively tied its own hands to consider thoughtfully and enact future universal service contribution reforms due to firm forbearance that is difficult to unwind in the future.”
Previously, Bloomfield has voiced concerns that the FCC’s proposed restoration of net neutrality, stating that the proposal “neglects the significant diversity and complexity of the broader online ecosystem” by homing in on last-mile retail ISPs as part of an effort to make sure subscribers in high-cost areas are not paying higher rates.
Her statement after Thursday’s FCC vote expressed disappointment that those concerns were not heeded.
“Today’s order appears to reinstate a regulatory framework that focuses upon only one sliver of the broader online ecosystem and, while we need to see the precise details of the item, we are concerned that the order could impose burdens on smaller broadband providers in particular in the course of doing so.”
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