FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal to revive net neutrality rules produced mixed, mostly predictable, reactions from consumer and industry groups with the NCTA and the senior Republican appointee on the agency Brendan Carr opposing the idea while some Democratic party lawmakers and consumer groups applauded the move.
The NAB declined to comment on the proposal.
Rosenworcel made the proposal shortly after Anna Gomez was sworn in as an FCC commissioner, ending a lengthy deadlock.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation said that the new Democratic majority would allow the FCC to take action on key consumer priorities, including restoring net neutrality protections gutted under the Trump Administration.
“With the swearing in of Anna Gomez, the FCC finally has the power to take action on the priorities important to the American people, from delivering on net neutrality and expanding affordable broadband access to strengthening local news,” Sen. Cantwell said. “I’m looking forward to working with the Commission to accomplish an agenda that puts consumers first.”
Cantwell also noted that a recent poll by the University of Maryland found that 72 percent of Americans support reinstating net neutrality and that she has been a leading advocate to protect and restore net neutrality rules. Last year, Sen. Cantwell co-sponsored the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act to accurately classify broadband internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, giving the FCC the appropriate authority to reinstate net neutrality protections.
In contrast, Commissioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC issued a statement citing a study by former President Obama’s lawyers on internet regulation that found the effort to impose Title II regulation “would be struck down” by the courts and was a “serious mistake.”
“The two respected lawyers—who represented the federal government before the Supreme Court during the Obama Administration—expressly lauded the goals of net neutrality,” Carr said in a statement. “Nonetheless, they concluded that Title II regulation of the Internet `would be struck down’ and `would be a serious mistake.’ I agree with President Obama’s lawyers.”
“First, the two senior Obama Administration alums are correct that, in their words, an FCC decision classifying broadband internet access service as Title II telecommunications service would ‘bring about an enormous and transformative expansion in [the agency’s] regulatory authority . . . over the national economy.’ Continuing, they rightly state that regulating the Internet as a Title II utility service `would vastly expand the Commission’s authority and would transform the way a federal agency regulates a vitally important element of our economy and the personal and social lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.’”
“Second, President Obama’s lawyers are correct in stating that any decision by the FCC to apply Title II, utility-style regulations to the Internet `would be struck down by the Supreme Court’ under the major questions doctrine, as West Virginia v. EPA makes clear. Indeed, as the two appellate lawyers succinctly put it last week, the legal question `is an easy one.’”
“As a former General Counsel of the FCC myself, I would encourage my Commission colleagues to heed the judicious guidance offered by these top lawyers from the Obama Administration and focus the FCC’s work on the numerous, important subjects that Congress has authorized the Commission to address—from rural broadband and public safety to spectrum and national security—rather than pursuing the Biden Administration’s unnecessary and unlawful plan for exerting government control over the Internet,” he concluded. “Heading down the path to Title II would not only push vital FCC matters onto the back burner, it would knock many of them off the stove altogether.”
In a statement Republican-appointed Commissioner Nathan Simington noted that "it has now been nearly six years since we repealed the net neutrality rules, and as far as I know, no one has died yet, nor have any other of the solemnly predicted catastrophes come to pass."
Simington also joined Commissioner Brendan Carr in expressing some doubts about the use of Title II to rein in potential abuses by ISPs but focused much of his attention on big tech companies who would profit from the revival of net neutrality rules.
These big tech companies have funded “an obsession” with net neutrality that obscured the real issue, which is an attempt by big tech “to monopolize…the internet economy” and make sure “they and only they are allowed to reap the massive profits of the internet ecosystem," Simington said in a statement.
The misleading net neutrality debate around “free speech was just the public front for what was really a campaign of industrial lawfare,” by big tech and large streaming companies, he argued.
Michael Powell, president and of the CEO, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association that is backed by cable operators also slammed the plan.
“The FCC has made clear its desire to launch new net neutrality rules, surfacing new ever-shifting rationales,” Powell said. “The original justification for accessing sweeping Title II authority has become obviously thin. ISPs continue to invest heavily, build ever-faster networks, and have kept those networks open. For two decades, there has been only one two-year period in which the FCC applied Title II to the internet, yet the internet has been open throughout because it makes business sense to offer it that way.”
“The proposed rules may complicate, if not deeply upset, our collective efforts to bring internet to rural and unserved communities,” he concluded. “These rules set out very heavy regulations that complicate the calculus of deploying networks in expensive, risky, and hard-to-serve markets. The FCC’s actions only add to that burden, and we fear net neutrality will lead to net fatality.”
Powell also predicted that “this will be a drawn out, messy proceeding with lots of wasted expense to get rules that might not survive the next election and are unlikely to pass constitutional muster when they reach the Supreme Court, which they inevitably will.”
Support for the idea came from consumer groups like Common Cause that have long backed the idea.
Michael Copps, former FCC Commissioner and Common Cause special adviser backed the proposal by arguing that “to allow a handful of monopoly-aspiring gate-keepers to control access to the internet is a direct threat to our democracy. Anyone hoping to be a full participant in our society must have access to an open internet that serves the people’s needs. So much of our lives now takes place online that without an internet serving the public interest, we are short-changing ourselves and our country. Congratulations to FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel for her courageous leadership to bring net neutrality back.”
Ishan Mehta, Common Cause Media and Democracy Program director also supported the move. “The Internet has fundamentally changed how people are civically engaged and is critical to participating in society today,” Mehta said. “It is the primary communications platform, a virtual public square and has been a powerful organizing tool, allowing social justice movements to gain momentum and widespread support. We look forward to the reinstatement net neutrality protections, and the control of the Internet returning to the American people instead of Internet providers.”
"The repeal of Net Neutrality during the Trump Administration left access to broadband unregulated and consumers unprotected,” Meta added. “As a result we saw broadband providers throttle popular video streaming services, degrade video quality forcing customers to pay higher prices for improved quality, offer service plans that favor their own services over competitors, and make hollow, voluntary, and unenforceable promises not to disconnect their customers during the pandemic.”
WISPA, which has approximately 1000 members who provide fixed broadband connectivity, and include equipment suppliers, support services, and other industry partners and stakeholders criticized the idea.
“Though details remain to be seen, such a move to reimpose twentieth-century utility-style rules are not needed at this time,” said Louis Peraertz, vice president of policy for WISPA – Broadband Without Boundaries. “The marketplace has thrived in the very absence of such regulation. Low prices, capex output, and technological and service innovation abound. Further, more customers than ever receive broadband, with this number growing each day. Smaller ISPs in particular should not be saddled with burdensome regulations. WISPA has long stood against common carrier regulation of its members’ services. Though Title II would allow access to poles, conduits and rights-of-way for broadband providers – something not automatically granted to ISPs today – its cost, and what it augurs for the future of regulation, outweigh that benefit. And if the FCC is concerned about the patchwork of state laws, that can be resolved through federal preemption that relaxes regulatory burdens, not increases them.”
“Quite simply, Title II is for a bygone time, not for a time when companies are actively competing for broadband customers and the government is prepared to provide billions in funding for broadband deployment,” he continued. “That noted, we look forward to learning more and working with the Commission and other stakeholders on this important matter, which, ultimately, we believe demands legislation from Congress.”
