With the backing of big tech companies, proponents of the FCC’s Title II net neutrality rules today organized an online protest against any attempt to water down the rules. The cable companies used the occasion to argue for a more flexible net neutrality regime. “As we have consistently pointed out, Title II legislation and net neutrality are not the same thing,” says Comcast SVP David Cohen in a blog. “We support permanent, strong, legally enforceable net neutrality rules.”
Individuals whose identities were used without their permission on comments to the FCC are speaking out to the agency. In a letter to Chairman Ajit Pai signed by 14 people, the group offers support for the principle of net neutrality, after the fake comments under their names called for the end of those rules. They also called for the comments to be removed.
Undoing the net neutrality rules may be the biggest fight yet triggered by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The tech industry, which sees net neutrality as necessary to innovation, is already pushing back by lobbying politicians, sending letters of protest to the agency and starting to rally supporters.
For months, policymakers have been struggling with the implications of FTC v. AT&T, in part because it overturned about a century’s worth of established legal practice and also, analysts say, because it appeared to open a wide loophole that businesses might use to evade most federal oversight. On Tuesday the federal appeals court responsible for the ruling announced that it has agreed to rehear the case, potentially opening the door to a different result. Here’s everything you need to know.
A bot is thought to be behind the posting of thousands of messages to the FCC’s website, in an apparent attempt to influence the results of a public solicitation for feedback on net neutrality.
Exclusives
John Oliver brought down the FCC’s website Sunday while skewering Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to scale back net neutrality rules. The Last Week Tonight host ripped the chairman’s proposals and then directed viewers to visit a website with the name gofccyourself.com. That site takes users directly to a page where they can file comments to the FCC on net neutrality.
Sens. Brian Schatz and Cory Booker are urging FCC Chairman Ajit Pai not to go forward with his plan to repeal his agency’s net neutrality rules. The two Democrats wrote in a letter to Pai that taking away net neutrality would lead to an uproar like the one that followed the GOP-led dismantling of internet privacy rules last month.
The decision means the rules favored by consumer groups but despised by telecom companies will remain in place for now. But the Trump administration has already signaled that it intends to scrap the Obama-era policy.
The new FCC Chairman in a speech today said that he wants to ditch the legal basis for the net neutrality rules that regulated internet service as a utility, like phone service. He also wants to eliminate the FCC’s broad powers to monitor Verizon, AT&T and Comcast for bad behavior. He is seeking input on how to change rules barring broadband providers from blocking and slowing down websites and from charging internet companies for a “fast lane” to customers.
Broadband companies hate the net neutrality rules, and they have an ally in new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has repeatedly called the regulations a mistake. Pai could launch the process of unwinding the rules as early as today, according to reports.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai intends to launch his reworking of the Obama-era net neutrality rules, according to sources familiar with the plan, setting up a showdown on an issue that has long pitted tech companies against internet providers. In a speech in Washington on Wednesday, Pai plans to discuss his vision for net neutrality — keeping open internet principles but getting rid of the utility-style regulatory framework approved by the agency’s previous Democratic majority.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai met with executives at Facebook, Cisco, Oracle, Intel and other major tech companies this week as the federal agency considers rolling back controversial net neutrality rules. He said he was looking for ideas how the FCC could change the more restrictive aspects of its net neutrality rules, while preserving parts of the regulation that ensure the internet remains open.
Chairman Ajit Pai last week floated his plan to roll back the rules in a meeting with broadband industry lobbyists. A tech industry source told The Hill Pai could unveil his plans as soon as May. Republicans have long blasted the rules, which require internet service providers to treat all web traffic the same. But consumer groups and Democrats are fighting to save the rules, which they say prevent companies from playing favorites with websites and online content.
In advance of the looming fight over the highly contentious net neutrality, a lobbying group representing some of tech’s biggest names met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday to argue in support of net neutrality. In a document released on Wednesday shedding light on the details of the meeting, the Internet Association said that it advocated for the Open Internet Order, which was passed under Obama-appointed FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in 2015.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has briefed telecom trade associations on his plans to scale back net neutrality rules. Pai’s plans will apparently maintain the basic concept of net neutrality, but will move the enforcement of the rules back to the Federal Trade Commission, rather than the FCC.
Hard-fought protections on privacy and competition at the FCC put in place before President Donald Trump took office, had upset the phone and cable industries. The new regime at the agency under Ajit Pai says consumers win if businesses face less regulation and have more incentives to invest. But consumer advocates worry these changes give broadband providers that own media businesses more power to favor their own services, among other things.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai railed against net neutrality on Tuesday, saying that the 2015 rules are “outdated” and are stifling the internet economy. “The FCC decided to apply last-century, utility-style regulation to today’s broadband networks,” Pai said during a speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The FCC in a 2-1 vote has exempted smaller internet providers from certain reporting requirements under the net neutrality rules approved under the Obama administration. The vote means broadband providers with 250,000 or fewer subscribers will have a five-year waiver on enhanced reporting requirements aimed at increasing internet service provider transparency.
Sen. Al Franken has written to newly appointed FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in defense of net neutrality, vowing to “fight to protect it every step of the way.” Pai has publicly opposed net neutrality as championed by former Chairman Tom Wheeler since before the Open Internet order was put in place — and afterwards, publishing a 67-page critique of its implementation.
The failed reconfirmation of Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel means that Republicans will hold a majority if and when chairman Tom Wheeler steps down. Their first order of business will likely be to reverse the network neutrality rules that were finalized in 2015.
The two Republicans on the FCC — Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly — say they plan to overturn the commission’s net neutrality rules after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
With Donald Trump headed to the Oval Office in 2017, the FCC’s network neutrality regulations could be in danger of getting the ax — a move that might embolden internet service providers to hike prices for consumers and content companies. Trump has not said much about the issue — or about his technology policy in general. But in a November 2014 tweet, he called President Obama’s push for net neutrality “an attack on the internet” and called it a “top-down power grab.”
CTIA-The Wireless Association and other groups on Friday filed petitions for a federal appeals court case to be reheard by all of the court’s judges.
The decision, if it is upheld, means Obama has put his stamp on the internet in a way few political figures have.
The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for the Obama administration, the FCC, consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or channeled into fast and slow lanes.
Public Knowledge has filed a complaint with the FCC over Comcast excluding its Stream TV OTT service from its customers’ data caps. The complaint says the service doesn’t gel with the FCC’s Open Internet rules and also violates Comcast’s NBCUniversal merger commitments.
Newly released emails reveal the internal wrangling between Congress and the FCC in 2014 over the agency’s controversial Internet regulations. The emails, made public for the first time this week, show FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler complaining that the agency’s “own words are being used against us” in meetings with congressional allies.
Congress on Wednesday unveiled a proposed funding bill that won’t restrict the FCC’s ability to enforce the open Internet rules. The move comes several days after a coalition of leading Web companies urged lawmakers to reject a Republican-led push for riders that could have gutted the net neutrality rules.
A U.S. appeals court heard arguments on Friday over the legality of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, in a case that may ultimately determine how consumers get access to content on the Internet. The fight is the latest battle over Obama administration rules requiring broadband providers to treat all data equally, rather than giving or selling access to a so-called Web “fast lane.”
The strongest U.S. Internet regulations ever written will face their day in court on Friday. Internet service providers like AT&T are hoping to have the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit strike down the FCC’s net neutrality regulations, just as it did to a pair of prior iterations of the rules.
A group of 23 House Republicans on Tuesday told an appeals court that Congress never granted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to write net neutrality regulations for the Internet. The members filed a late friend-of-the-court brief with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ahead of oral arguments next month to determine whether the rules approved earlier this year should stand.
New rules that treat the Internet like a public utility and prohibit blocking, slowing and creating paid fast lanes for online traffic took effect Friday. Here’s a look at what the developments mean for consumers and companies.
The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington means that the FCC’s tough new net neutrality rules will take effect on Friday — with the Internet to be reclassified as a regulated communications utility. The U.S. Telecom Association asked the court to block the changes while justices weigh legal challenges to the regulations. But the organization has “not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” the ruling says. The parties in the larger case now have two weeks to propose a schedule for the trial.
The FCC and those trying to kill its new net neutrality rules agree on at least one thing: The court should make quick work of the case. The FCC on Friday filed a brief urging the court not to put the agency’s newly approved net neutrality rules on hold while the broader legal challenges are worked out.
Telecom and cable groups moved on to the next step in fighting the FCC’s open Internet order, filing a joint motion Wednesday for a partial stay of the order before it goes into effect on June 12.
The FCC’s net neutrality rules came under a new legal assault Tuesday, as AT&T and the major wireless and cable industry groups sued to overturn the order. AT&T and its trade group CTIA — The Wireless Association, which also represents Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, filed lawsuits in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as did the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, whose members include Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. The American Cable Association, which represents smaller cable operators, went to the same court.
Expect Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) to introduce a Resolution of Disapproval of the FCC’s net neutrality rules the day Congress returns on April 13. A disapproval resolution to block the FCC’s rules requires only a simple majority in both chambers to pass, but it would likely be stopped by President Obama’s veto pen.
The GOP continued to chip away at the FCC’s open Internet order Tuesday, using the commission budget as its latest cudgel. At a House appropriation subcommittee hearing, members heard another round of testimony from the dueling duo of net neutrality: chairman Tom Wheeler and GOP commissioner Ajit Pai. It was the fourth hearing in seven days during which Republicans have put the FCC’s order to reclassify Internet service as a utility under intense questioning.
On Monday, USTelecom — a group that includes some of the nation’s largest Internet providers — filed suit in Washington, while Alamo Broadband sued the FCC in New Orleans. The court filings kick-start a legal effort to overturn the FCC’s regulations, passed in February, that aim to keep Internet providers from speeding up, slowing down or blocking Web traffic.
