FCC says
‘we listened and we learned’, and passes strict broadband rules that represent
‘a red-letter day for internet freedom’
The Guardian, Dominic Rushe in Washington, 26 February 2015
 |
| Protesters hold a rally at the FCC headquarters in Washington to support net neutrality. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images |
Internet
activists scored a landmark victory on Thursday as the top US
telecommunications regulator approved a plan to govern broadband internet like
a public utility.
Following
one of the most intense – and bizarre – lobbying battles in the history of
modern Washington politics, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed
strict new rules that give the body its greatest power over the cable industry
since the internet went mainstream.
FCC
chairman Tom Wheeler – a former telecom lobbyist turned surprise hero of net
neutrality supporters – thanked the 4 million people who submitted comments on
the new rules. “Your participation has made this the most open process in FCC
history,” he said. “We listened and we learned.”
Wheeler
said that while other countries were trying to control the internet, the
sweeping new US protections on net neutrality – the concept that all
information and services should have equal access online – represented “a
red-letter day for internet freedom”.
“The
internet is simply too important to be left without rules and without a referee
on the field,” said Wheeler. “Today’s order is more powerful and more expansive
than any previously suggested.”
Barack
Obama – who had pushed for the regulations – praised the decision and thanked
the people who had protested for tighter rules. “I ran for office because I
believed that nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for
change. That’s the backbone of our democracy–and you’ve proven that this
timeless principle is alive and well in our digital age.So to all the people
who participated in this conversation, I have a simple message: thank you,” the
president wrote.
But
Republicans and cable companies were quick to attack the move. The National
Cable and Telecommunications Association said the rules would hurt “everyday
broadband users” by raising costs and reducing investment.
Broadband
providers will be banned from creating so-called “fast lanes” blocking or
slowing traffic online, and the regulator will oversee mobile broadband as well
as cable. The FCC would also have the authority to challenge unforeseen
barriers broadband providers might create as the internet develops.
Activists
and tech companies argue the new rules are vital to protect net neutrality –
the concept that all information and services should have equal access to the
internet. The FCC’s two Republican commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael
O’Rielly, voted against the plan but were overruled at a much anticipated
meeting by three Democratic members on the panel.
Republicans
have long fought the FCC’s net neutrality protections, arguing the rules will
create an unnecessary burden on business. They have accused Obama of bullying
the regulator into the move in order to score political points, with
conservative lawmakers and potential 2016 presidential candidates expected to
keep the fight going well into that election campaign.
Pai said
the FCC was flip-flopping for “one reason and one reason only: president Obama
told us to do so”.
Wheeler
dismissed accusations of a “secret” plan as “nonsense”. “This is no more a plan
to regulate the internet than the first amendment is a plan to regulate free
speech,” Wheeler said.
“This is
the FCC using all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and
consumers.”
Obama offered
his support to the rules late last year, following an online activism campaign
that pitched internet organisers and companies from Netflix and Reddit to the
online craft market Etsy and I Can Has Cheezburger? – web blog home of the
Lolcats meme – against Republican leaders and the cable and telecom lobbies.
Broadband
will now be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act – the strongest
legal authority the FCC has available. Obama called on the independent
regulator to implement Title II last year, leading to charges that he unduly
influenced Wheeler’s decision that are now being investigated in Congress.
Broadband
providers hit back immediately. The National Cable and Telecommunications
Association said the rules would hurt “everyday broadband users” by raising
costs and reducing investment.
“Today’s
decision by the FCC to encumber broadband Internet services
with badly
antiquated regulations is a radical step that presages a time
of
uncertainty for consumers, innovators and investors,” said Michael Glover,
Verizon’s senior vice-president for public policy and government affairs.
To
illustrate what Verizon saw as the FCC’s old-fashioned thinking, the company
put out its news release in typewriter font and dated it 1934. The release also
went out in Morse code.
.@Verizon doesn't give a font. #NetNeutrality #FCClive http://t.co/Nu08lnMf6T pic.twitter.com/IrJYXV0d8T
— dominic rushe (@dominicru) February 26, 2015
Before the
meeting on Thursday, a small band of protesters gathered in the snow outside
the FCC’s Washington headquarters, in celebration of their success in lobbying
for a dramatic U-turn in regulation. Wheeler and his Democratic colleagues,
Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, were cheered as they sat down for the
meeting.
Joining the
activists outside was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who said the FCC also
needed more power to prevent future attacks on the open internet.
“We have
won on net neutrality,” Wozniak told the Guardian. “This is important because
they don’t want the FCC to have oversight over other bad stuff.”
What a legend. RT @dominicru: @stevewoz outside #NetNeutrality vote. @FCC needs power to stop "bad stuff". pic.twitter.com/qxz1j2NOwR
— Craig Hitchings (@craighitchings) February 26, 2015
Tim
Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, addressed the meeting via video,
saying he applauded the FCC’s decision to protect net neutrality: “More than
anything else, the action you take today will preserve the reality of a
permission-less innovation that is the heart of the internet.”
“It’s about
consumer rights, it’s about free speech, it’s about democracy,” Berners-Lee
said.
Clyburn
compared the new rules to the Bill of Rights. “We are here to ensure that there
is only one internet,” she said. “We want to ensure that those with deep
pockets have the same opportunity as those with empty pockets too succeed.”
The fight
for net neutrality has been largely fought online. The millions of messages
were sent to the FCC during its comment period on the rules before Thursday’s
landmark series of votes.
Last year
the FCC looked set to approve rules that would have allowed internet service
providers to create “fast lanes” on the internet. Critics charged such a move
would create a two-tiered internet and stifle competition.
Tiffiniy
Cheng, co-founder of internet advocacy group Fight for the Future, said: “This
is our free speech struggle in the digital age. Institutions of power should
know by now: internet users will not stand idly by while anyone tries to take
their freedom away.”
The FCC
passed two new orders on Thursday. The first, equally controversial but
eclipsed by the net neutrality debate, overturned bans on municipal broadband
companies competing with private cable firms.
Municipal
broadband companies in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina,
pushed for the expansion plans, against which private cable and telecom rivals
have been lobbied intensely. Twenty US states currently have limits or bans on
local governments building, owning or partnering with others to give local
businesses and residents a choice in high-speed internet access. That vote,
too, fell along party lines, potentially opening many US cities to wider
competition.
Voting for
the municipality change, Clyburn said millions of people had been left in
“digital darkness” because cable companies did not want to expand in their
areas. The Republican commissioners, O’Rielly and Pai, called the change
“appalling” and “un-constitutional”.
“Unfortunately
for the Commission, all the lipstick in the world cannot disguise this pig,”
said Pai.
Christopher
Mitchell, director of community broadband networks at the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance, said Thursday’s vote could set “an historic precedent” that could
“profoundly impact the lives of three-quarters of Americans who are without
broadband or a choice in their service because of big cable underinvestment in
their towns”.
The FCC was
forced to rewrite its broadband rules after Verizon successfully challenged its
authority to stop it creating fast lanes or to more broadly regulate the
industry under its last set of regulations, the Open Internet Order of 2010.
Legal challenges for the new rules are also inevitable.
“When
internet users come together to fight for something they believe in,” said
Fight for the Future’s Cheng, “nothing can stop them.”
 |
| Obama:
‘We cannot allow ISPs to restrict the best access.’ Photograph: Reuters |
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