Network Neutrality

The Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer for the City of New York released a "Truth in Broadband” Request for Information (RFI) to establish transparency and accountability in how carriers provide internet service to consumers. The goal of the RFI is to gather input from industry and subject matter experts to help implement a system for monitoring the quality and performance of internet service providers.

[Commentary] As young policy wonks in D.C.—one working for Clinton-Gore, the other urging non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to engage tech policy—we listened to tech innovators and leaders for social justice. As we look back over those years, we see how many who inspired us in the early days decided to head off in a different direction. What precisely happened?

Partnerships with pay TV operators, internet service providers, and other service providers are valuable contributors to Netflix’s subscriber growth and could play an even larger role as the company looks more deeply into agreements that bundle in the Netflix service. Netflix doesn’t break out what percentage of new customers come through its various partnerships with ISPs and pay TV providers: they are a “meaningful contributor, but not a dominant contributor in terms of being a major channel for us in terms of acquisition,” said David Wells, Netflix’s CFO.

A coalition of conservative groups are urging Congress not to support a bill that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of network neutrality. Twenty-four free-market groups sent letters to lawmakers on Jan 22 calling on them to let the FCC’s decision stand, arguing that the rules stifled investment from broadband companies. “Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s 2015 decision to classify the Internet as a public utility under Title II was a solution in search of a problem, and disrupted the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) tried and true approach,” the letter reads.

Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT) signed an executive order that will require all internet and data providers to adhere to net neutrality principles if they want to be awarded state contracts. "When the FCC repealed its net neutrality rules, it said consumers should choose. The state of Montana is one of the biggest consumers of internet services in our state.

Following the controversial Federal Communications Commission’s decision to repeal network neutrality, a coalition of 22 attorneys general, including Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, filed a petition for review of the decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan 16. However, professor of information systems management at Carnegie Mellon University Rahul Telang said he believes that the FCC will be successful.

California state lawmakers are angling for another fight with the Trump administration, this time to revive federal net neutrality rules that they say are crucial to a fair, open and free internet. 

On Dec 4, 2017, several members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing deep concern about the "proposal to roll back critical consumer protections by dismantling...current net neutrality rules." Due to reports that bots may have interfered with the proceeding and reports that "50,000 consumer complaints seem to have been excluded from the public record", the members of Congress requested that the FCC delay its planned vote on the item until it could conduct a thorough review of the state of the record and "provide Congress with greater assurance

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is pushing for a floor vote on a bill that would stop the Federal Communications Commission from repealing network neutrality.  “December’s radical FCC vote to dismantle net neutrality has endangered the American entrepreneurship and freedom that are the envy of the world,” Rep Pelosi said. “Congress must act to reverse this destructive FCC ruling that steamrolled over a bipartisan, decades-long consensus and the will of the American people to undermine the fair playing field that is the heart of the internet.”

Over the past 25 years, the internet has grown and changed in ways, both good and bad, that no one predicted. But at least one thing is constant: concern about how the Internet is regulated.  The Federal Communications Commission’s decision in Dec to change the regulatory framework governing internet service providers (ISPs) isn’t going to change that concern.