Regulatory classification

[Op-ed] National debates too often miss the reality on the ground in Alaska, and that reality is at the forefront of my mind when I’m considering the current debate about Net Neutrality. I strongly support a free and open internet and agree with those concerned about internet service providers prioritizing one website’s traffic over another’s or throttling access to certain content. I also believe and prefer Congress, not an executive agency like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), should legislate protections for the internet.

Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Krekorian has introduced a motion to study the feasibility of a municipal broadband network that would provide at-cost high-speed Internet to the city's local businesses and residents. The motion calls for a study into the creation of a new public department to oversee what is essentially an effort to improve the city’s broadband capabilities.

As the Federal Communications Commission in the Trump era dismantles vital rules protecting net neutrality and users’ privacy, Americans need an internet provider that they can trust and is accountable to the public, not profits.

Paid prioritization has become the third rail of net neutrality discussions, Comcast senior EVP David Cohen said, but it should not be. Cohen said he has had conversations with his industry, with tech companies and the Cisco’s of the world about the possibility of agreeing to a prohibition on paid prioritization with a limited exception for specialized services that do not travel on the public internet, though he said that was not an official Comcast proposal.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit will be hearing the appeals of the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom order. That court has principal jurisdiction over FCC decisions. The court heard the two previous appeals -- of the 2011 Open Internet Order, which it overturned, and the 2015 Open Internet Order, which it upheld. The Judicial Conference lottery, which is held when appeals are filed in multiple venues, had chosen the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but there had been a motion, unopposed, to instead consolidate the cases in the DC Circuit.

Federal Trade Commission acting Chief Technology Officer Neil Chilson says that the FTC has the tech expertise to enforce network neutrality in the absence of Federal Communications Commission rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, but that it does not need a "granular, micromanaging" level of technical detail to protect consumers and competition -- it is not writing specific rules -- but rather to focus on the end effects of a particular practice.

USTelecom, a lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, and other large telecommunication companies, plans to sue states and cities that try to enforce network neutrality rules. "Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter wrote.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken the next step toward instituting its network neutrality rollback. On March 27, the FCC signaled it has submitted the enhanced information-collection portion of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), according to the Federal Register, which plans to publish that OMB submission March 28 -- starting a 30-day comment period to the OMB. 

In a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rob Portman (R-OH), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that there is little the FCC can do to prevent public comments filed under false names, or under stolen identities or to prevent mass bogus filings in what is meant to be an open, public, process.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which has fought to preserve open internet access for more than two decades, filed its petition to intervene in the net neutrality case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. CCIA has standing to directly intervene in this action because many of members will be affected by the FCC’s latest order that would abdicate its role in enforcing nondiscrimination rules on the internet.