http://thehill.com/policy/technology/231701-fcc-to-push-strongest-open-internet-protections-everBy Julian Hattem - 02/04/15 11:12 AM EST
Federal regulators will follow President Obama’s call and reclassify Internet service so that it can be regulated like a utility, the head of the Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday.
Chairman Tom Wheeler announced he will embrace the controversial approach to the regulations, ending months of speculation about the FCC’s plans.
The new rules that he will circulate to his four fellow commissioners this week are the “strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC,” Wheeler said in an op-ed in Wired.
The “enforceable, bright-line rules” will ban Internet service providers such as Comcast or Verizon from blocking or slowing people’s access to content online. They will also ban “fast lane” deals that the companies could make with websites to speed up particular services, and extend the rules to Internet accessed through people’s cellphones and tablets for the first time.
“My proposal assures the rights of Internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission,” Wheeler wrote.
The White House said Wednesday it was "certainly encouraged" to see Wheeler's proposal, and that they believed the plan was "consistent with the view the president articulated" last fall.
Press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House would "withhold a detailed comment about their proposal out of respect" for the independent process.
Broadband Internet service is now classified as an “information” service under the FCC’s rules, which allows it to escape some types of regulation that are applied to “telecommunications” services such as wired phone lines. But Web activists have for years questioned that categorization, and said that people’s increasing dependence on an open and free Internet should prompt the FCC to change course.
Those calls were amplified after a federal appeals court tossed out previous net neutrality rules last year, and in the wake of an initial FCC proposal that opponents said would have allowed companies to negotiate to create “fast lanes” on the Internet.
Nearly 4 million public comments came in to the FCC after those initial rules last spring, many of them urging the commission to act more aggressively.
The strongest push for tougher rules came from Obama, who shortly after the midterm elections issued a video statement calling for the FCC to apply utility-style rules under Title II of the Communications Act.
Though Wheeler has said he had already been examining the legal authority before Obama’s statement, the White House’s move seems to have ratcheted up the pressure for him to act.
“The Internet must be fast, fair and open,” Wheeler wrote on Wednesday, while harkening back to his past as a venture capitalist and head of a tech startup. “That is the message I’ve heard from consumers and innovators across this nation.”
“The proposal I present to the commission will ensure the Internet remains open, now and in the future, for all Americans,” he added.
The move faces opposition from Republicans, both on Capitol Hill and within the FCC.
While Wheeler should be able to pass the rules with the backing of his two fellow Democrats on the five-member commission, the two GOP members are assured to vote against any proposal that reclassifies the Web.
In Congress, Republicans have raced to write new legislation that would enshrine in law some net neutrality protections — such as a ban on blocking, slowing or speeding up people’s access to particular websites – but would ban the FCC from treating the Web like a utility, among other new restrictions. Democrats have so far balked at the measure, and a deal seems unlikely until at least until after the FCC votes on the rules on Feb. 26.
Many Republicans have worried about any government oversight of the Web, and have raised especially vocal concerns that it would be reclassified, which they say would enact outdated regulatory tools to the Internet of the 21st Century.
Wheeler promised that his new draft rules — the text of which will likely not become public for another three weeks — “will be strong enough and flexible enough not only to deal with the realities of today, but also to establish ground rules for the as yet unimagined.”
The proposal will “modernize” the law, Wheeler wrote, “tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks.” For instance, the new rules will decline to regulate rates, impose tariffs or take some other aggressive regulatory steps that critics have worried about, and will not lead to any new fees or taxes, FCC officials said.
The new rules will for the first time apply to wireless service, allow the FCC to investigate back-end deals that companies make to hand off Web traffic from one provider to another, and “take appropriate enforcement action” against any actions that are “not just and reasonable,” the FCC said in a fact sheet about the rules.
Major Internet service providers have pledged a lawsuit over the looming rules, setting up a court battle that could last for years. Wheeler has acknowledged those anticipated lawsuits in recent weeks, and has said that his new rules are designed to withstand them.
Democrats and Web activists who have pushed for strong rules were ecstatic at Wednesday’s announcement.
“The proposed update to net neutrality rules is a triumph for the American consumer,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications, said in a statement. “This is the architecture of our digital future.”
“All indications point to this announcement as reassuring for the future of the Internet, free speech and American innovation,” added David Segal, the head of the Web activist group Demand Progress, “because Title II is the simplest, most legally sound way to preserve net neutrality.”
This story was last updated at 2:21 p.m.
