After a 3–2 party line vote, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reinstated net neutrality rules in its revamped Open Internet Order that prohibits internet providers from throttling or blocking access, and from setting up fast lanes. The final rules won’t likely go into effect for months and have yet to be publicly released, a fact that has disappointed critics and activists.
The vote, which reclassified the internet as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, was a clear win for net neutrality supporters who feared broadband providers would shortchange consumers and stifle innovation through paid prioritization that would let bigger more successful services pay for faster service.
But the vote ignited stern opposition from the FCC’s two Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly who felt the new order with the net neutrality rules was essentially “Obamacare for the Internet,” and gave consumers less freedom and more restrictions on what kind of data plans they should get.
“The Internet has become a powerful force for freedom, both at home and abroad,” Pai said in his opening remarks. “So why is the FCC turning its back on Internet freedom? Is it because we now have evidence that the Internet is broken? No. We are flip-flopping for one reason and one reason alone. President Obama told us to do so.”
President Barack Obama urged the FCC in November to reinstate the net neutrality rules and ban ISPs from throttling, blocking or otherwise hindering consumers’ internet access.
Pai, who has openly and consistently disapproved of the new order, said and Obama’s plan had “glaring legal flaws” that would hopefully be reversed by the courts or Congress.
The FCC voted to “upend pricing plans that benefit consumers” so that “if a company doesn’t want to offer an expensive, unlimited data plan, it could find itself in the FCC’s cross hairs” for favoring more usage-based pricing plans.
“Our standard should be simple: If you like your current service plan, you should be able to keep your current service plan,” Pai said, evoking Obama’s famous words when describing the Affordable Care Act. “The FCC shouldn’t take it away from you…Consumers will be worse off under President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet. Consumers should expect their bills to go up, and they should expect that broadband will be slower going forward. This isn’t what anyone was promised, to say the least.”
Earlier this month, a conservative advocacy group Protect Internet Freedom released a video bashing the FCC’s proposal to treat the internet as a utility, suggesting that it would mean more government intrusion into how people use the internet and what services they use most. Commissioner O’Reilly resurrected that point in his dissent.
“While I see no need for net neutrality rules, I am far more troubled by the dangerous course that the Commission is now charting on Title II and the consequences it will have for broadband investment, edge providers, and consumers,” O’Reilly said. “[It] is hard for me to believe that the Commission is establishing an entire Title II/net neutrality regime to protect against hypothetical harms. There is not a shred of evidence that any aspect of this structure is necessary. The D.C. Circuit called the prior, scaled-down version a ‘prophylactic’ approach. I call it guilt by imagination.”
During Thursday’s vote, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler quelled critics suspicions the new order would deeply meddle in broadband companies’ affairs: “The action that we take today is an irrefutable reflection of the principle that no one, whether government or corporate, should control free and open access to the internet.”