When the Republican-led Federal Communications Communications repealed net neutrality regulations in 2018, it left Americans who need to remain connected during a crisis at the mercy of the telecom companies that sell them their internet access, according to a former FCC staffer.
According to Gigi Sohn, in an essay for The Verge, as much of the country remains under stay-at-home orders, and depends on the internet for everything from maintaining an income to keeping up with family and friends, the FCC must now plead with the big telecommunications companies not to kick their customers offline during the coronavirus crisis.
Sohn, who served on the commission staff from 2013 to 2017, notes that at the heart of the net neutrality repeal order was the reclassification of the internet from a “telecommunications service,” which is subject to heavy FCC regulation, to an “information service,” which falls under Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction. And the FTC has almost no authority to regulate “information services” at all.
As a result, rather than simply order internet service providers to maintain service for customers throughout the crisis, FCC Chair Ajit Pai, a Donald Trump appointee, has been requesting that ISPs sign a voluntary pledge saying that they will not interrupt service for customers over the next 60 days.
So far, Pai says, 650 companies have signed on to his “Keep American Connected Initiative.”
But though she calls the companies who have signed on to the pledge “commendable,” Sohn wrote that “a voluntary pledge isn’t adequate to ensure that Americans can work, learn, have access to health care, and communicate during this trying time.”
As Sohn points out, though ISPs have signed the pledge, nothing prevents them from deciding at any point to ignore it, or cut short the 60-day period.
“Nor can the FCC require broadband providers to take critical steps beyond the pledge, like relaxing data caps, providing low-cost or free connectivity, or other steps that would help those desperately in need during this crisis,” Sohn wrote.
Pai has long claimed that without net neutrality, companies would improve service by increasing their investment in broadband. But those claims have been debunked. A decade-long study by George Washington University showed that net neutrality rules had no effect on industry investment one way or the other.
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