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After years of back and forth rules, the FCC voted to prevent internet providers from meddling in broadband speeds.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is restoring previous net neutrality rules to regulate the broadband sector, to ensure the internet is “fast, open and fair”.
The FCC voted yesterday (25 April) to reclassify broadband services as a “Title II telecommunications service”, essentially giving itself the authority to act as a watchdog over this sector.
The US Commission says these net neutrality rules prohibit internet service providers from blocking, throttling or engaging in “paid prioritisation” of lawful content. The FCC said net neutrality treats the internet as an “essential service” and prevents providers from meddling in the broadband speed of their customers.
The US has been in a long internal battle around these net neutrality rules. The FCC claims one of its chairs first challenged the broadband industry in 2004 to preserve “internet freedoms”. Rules around net neutrality were introduced in the US during the presidency of Barack Obama, but were reversed during the presidency of former US president Donald Trump.
The argument has continued since then however, as California signed net neutrality legislation into state law in 2018, a move that former FCC chair Ajit Pai described as “illegal” at the time.
“Through its actions today, the Commission creates a national standard by which it can ensure that broadband internet service is treated as an essential service,” the FCC said in a statement yesterday. “Today’s vote also makes clear that the Commission will exercise its authority over broadband in a narrowly tailored fashion – without rate regulation, tariffing, or unbundling – to foster continued innovation and investment.”
These restored rules give the FCC the ability to “revoke the authorisations” of foreign-owned entities to operate broadband networks in the US, if they “pose a threat to national security”.
The new rules also allow the FCC to “play an active role” around internet outages and push providers to adequately address these incidents.
“Without such authority, the FCC cannot require companies to even report broadband outages, cannot collect outage data, and lacks the authority to consider ways that it can help protect against and recover from internet service outages,” the FCC said in a blogpost about net neutrality.
It is likely that the discussion around net neutrality is not over, however. Republican commissioners at the FCC spoke against the vote and industry groups are expected to challenge the rules in court, CNN reports.
Net neutrality supporters protesting in 2014. Image: Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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