Brandyn Krampert
In Motion Staff Writer
More than 25 years ago, lines were redrawn with the emergence of the Internet as a technology in how people communicate with each other in all sorts of ways.
These trends have been under threat of changing since there have previously been no safeguards in place to protect consumers from the discretion of major Internet service providers such as Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T. But since the end of February, that has changed in a Federal Communications Commission ruling effectively establishing net neutrality rules for both cable and wireless providers. It namely reclassifies ISPs under title 2, which subjects them to regulations as a public utility.
The FCC has expressed that the ruling will ensure that ISPs will treat content in a neutral manner, disallowing them from blocking or slowing content to their customers. It also bans ISPs from charging their customers more based on what websites they go to.
Suppose that this ruling does not get overturned by congress or the federal courts, the Internet will remain the greatest democratizing force of our times but only for some.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Commerce found that 4 out of 10 households is wired with internet who make an income below $25,000 while the rate is 93 percent with households of incomes over $100,000.
But what difference does it make on who doesn’t have access in their homes? In part of a 2010 Pew Survey, there was a consensus that people without Internet access at home “are at a major disadvantage when it comes to finding out about job opportunities or learning career skills, or when getting health information, learning new things for personal enrichment, and using government services.”
This overall dynamic of accessibility essentially reinforces patterns of inequality in terms of class.
According to a report by the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Internet connections at nearly every speed costs more in the United States than in Europe. Many would argue it boils down to a lack of competition and choice between ISPs in the U.S. The FCC noted that 75 percent of homes have one option at most and such a trend could surely allow companies to charge whatever they want.
What is to be done? ISPs are profit-driven companies and do not align themselves with social needs and clearly won’t make sure that everyone gets access at a reasonable price. But that is how a public utility functions and since the recent FCC ruling, it’s within their jurisdiction to intervene and develop policy to garner more competition or to implement price controls on Internet services. Or city governments could even compete with ISPs in their area like in the case of Chattanooga, Tenn. where they have developed a low-cost fiber-optic network which has significantly faster Internet speeds than the cable networks used by private ISPs, which is publicly owned.
If the FCC takes their ruling seriously, they should make moves to genuinely transform Internet services into a utility for the public.