New Net rule fires up those opposed

Neutrality battle likely to rage on

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission's vote on Thursday to repeal its Net neutrality rules marked the end of a brief experiment by the network regulator to rein in the tremendous power of Internet providers by treating them like the highly-regulated telecoms. Now, providers will be allowed to speed up some websites -- and block or slow down others -- so long as they disclose it to the public, and violations will largely be handled after the fact by the Federal Trade Commission, not the FCC.

But far from settling the matter, the Republican-led FCC has simply opened a new chapter in a political battle that stretches back nearly as far as the dot-com boom itself. Those on both sides who've watched the policy seesaw wildly back and forth have but one emotion to report: exhaustion.

"For the last decade, we've been on a regulatory roller coaster," said Jack Nadler, a partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, who blames a chronic case of Net neutrality whiplash on Washington's "recurring bureaucratic convulsions."

That dynamic threatened to play out once more this week as the FCC voted to dismantle the Obama-era network rules put into place just two years ago. Even before the agency's meeting had concluded, supporters of the regulations quickly vowed to sue the FCC in an effort to stop it.

"We will fight the FCC's decisions in the courts, and we will fight it in the halls of Congress," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who promised Thursday to introduce legislation along with more than a dozen other lawmakers to overturn the FCC vote.

State lawmakers in California and Washington have said they will try to write their own legislation to replace the federal rules -- though that effort could be swiftly quashed. The FCC's decision on Thursday explicitly sought to preempt states from going around the federal rules, and agency officials made clear that they would act against such attempts.

Any new litigation could lead to the second time the FCC has gone to court over Net neutrality in as many years.

"I'm shocked -- shocked! -- that people are going to challenge this decision in court," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said sarcastically to reporters after the vote.

The zigzag approach to Net neutrality is a byproduct of the fact that the FCC is an independent agency; its levers over industry change hands every time a new party takes the White House. In an era of extreme polarization in Washington, that has led to Republicans and Democrats seeking to overturn each others' policies at every opportunity.

"The Net neutrality vote has taken on a back-and-forth quality as it has become more partisan," said Randolph May, president of the right-leaning Free State Foundation. "This is unfortunate because so much of a proper resolution of the issue, aside from the legal analysis, depends on economic understanding and technological savvy. These are areas in which partisan politics ought to have less sway in determining the right answers."

May said he is confident the seesaw will settle on a policy result that looks much more like what Pai and his allies approved this week than what Pai's predecessor, Chairman Tom Wheeler, put in place.

But other longtime participants in the debate say the fight has only continued this long because Internet access providers refuse to concede.

"It has seesawed back and forth because the ISPs won't be satisfied until they've completely neutered the FCC for all time," said Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to Wheeler.

Business on 12/16/2017

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