FCC chairman lays out plan to reverse net neutrality regulation

However, the election of Donald Trump and ascendance of FCC commissioner Ajit Pai to the chairmanship suggested the fight was about to pick up again.

“It would put consumers at the mercy of phone and cable companies”, said Craig Aaron, president of the consumer advocacy group Free Press, according to the Times. He said Pai’s proposal “creates an environment where we can have a fresh constructive dialogue”. At the end of the day, internet providers are still doing well and have seen their stock prices rise, which suggest investors aren’t as devastated by net neutrality as they let on. On the other side, Pai claims that investment in broadband has decreased since the net neutrality rollout. Among the nation’s 12 largest Internet service providers, domestic broadband capital expenditures decreased by 5.6% or $3.6 billion between 2014 and 2016 – the first two years of the Title II era, he said. Either path also would include a request for comments from companies and the public on what shape remaining rules should take. However, it’s unclear whether regulators could legally compel ISPs to abide by such principles without existing net neutrality rules.

The rules, passed with only Democratic votes at the FCC in 2015, forbid broadband providers such as AT&T (T) and Comcast (CMCSA) from blocking or slowing certain web traffic, or from charging higher fees in return for quicker passage over their networks. However, the Trump administration believes that net neutrality introduces unnecessary barriers for internet providers, discouraging investment in telecom infrastructure. Pai also said high-speed internet service shouldn’t be treated like a public utility.

“It is simple. I’ve been consistent in my view that I favor a free and open internet and that I oppose Title II”, Pai said.

Netflix, which was a major advocate for net neutrality rules in the 2015 debate, issued a statement in its earnings report in January, saying that any move to weaken net neutrality was “unlikely to materially affect our domestic margins or service quality because we are now popular enough with consumers to keep our relationships with ISPs stable”.

Others on the right agree the FCC rules were unnecessary and government oversight would only impede innovation. Several internet providers said they didn’t plan to do those things and Comcast said Wednesday that it supported undoing the net neutrality rules but did not “block, throttle or discriminate” against internet content.

Republicans and internet providers continue to order that they aren’t actually against net neutrality, they’re just against the Title II classification. This policy had made it sure that ISPs can not prioritize content and have to treat it all equally – whether the traffic originates from a rich media company, a streaming service owned by the internet company itself, or its competitor in the streaming industry.

Molly Wood: When we talk about net neutrality, we are talking about protections regulations that ensure that the providers of internet service can not discriminate against any services.