Campaign Action
The new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has always been opposed to the open internet, and now he's in a position to end it. He's been telegraphing that intention for months, and has now made it official.
The chairman, Ajit Pai, said high-speed internet service should no longer be treated like a public utility with strict rules, as it is now. Instead, he said, the industry should largely be left to police itself.
The plan is Mr. Pai’s most forceful action in his race to roll back rules that govern telecommunications, cable and broadcasting companies, which he says are harmful to business. But he is certain to face a contentious battle with consumers and tech companies that rallied around the existing rules, which are meant to prevent broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast from giving special treatment to any streaming videos, news sites and other content.
“Two years ago, I warned that we were making a serious mistake,” Mr. Pai said at the Newseum in Washington, where he laid out the plan in a speech. “It’s basic economics. The more heavily you regulate something, the less of it you’re likely to get.”
Which is ridiculous. No one is getting less internet because providers can't throttle certain content. In fact, it's the opposite. The open internet is critical for entrepreneurs to innovate and to get a foothold in their markets using the web, on an level playing-field with existing competition. The only thing we might be getting less of is Comcast and its arbitrary fees, extra charges, and nonexistent ethic of customer service. Comcast, however, is getting a lot less with the open internet—less money from holding its precious bandwidth hostage. If they get to "self-police" as Pai envisions, they'll quickly remedy that and we won't have much recourse to stop them.
On the plus side, though, the "new policy faces several hurdles before going into effect, including months of comments and revisions." And they will be getting comments. Lots and lots of comments. We won against the odds before, and we'll do it again.