The days could be numbered for Net neutrality under the Trump Administration.
Net neutrality rules, passed in February 2015 by the Federal Communications Commission and supported by Netflix, Google and other big websites, prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking and slowing the transmission of content. The contentious issue triggered lawsuits from the ISPs and drew an unprecedented outpouring of public comments.
While Net neutrality wasn't a constant topic for President-Elect Donald Trump as a candidate, he has been an opponent of the regulations, calling the FCC's adoption "a power grab" by President Obama in a 2014 tweet.
And the President-Elect's latest appointments suggest he'll try to bolster that view, supported by telecommunication companies like Verizon and others, by reversing the rules. Jeffrey Eisenach, who joined Trump's transition team in October, and Mark Jamison, a former lobbyist for Sprint, were named Monday as a member of the "Agency Landing" team focusing on the FCC.
Both advisers opposed Net neutrality in the past. Net neutrality "is not about protecting consumers from rapacious Internet Service Providers ... Net neutrality is crony capitalism pure and simple – an effort by one group of private interests to enrich itself at the expense of another group by using the power of the state," wrote Eisenach in a 2014 article on the web site of the American Enterprise Institute, a free enterprise think tank where Eisenach was a visiting scholar from 2012 to 2016.
A recent New York Times article noted that some of Eisenach's work at the think-tank on FCC issues were supported by Verizon and the GSMA, a wireless trade group of which AT&T and Verizon are members.
Eisenach, who is currently the managing director and co-chair of the communications, media, and Internet practice at NERA Economic Consulting, declined comment on the administration's plans.
Jamison has also taken swings at the Obama Adminstration's net neutrality stance. The FCC has pursued "unilateral approach" on Net neutrality and other rulemaking procedures that "forces industry and consumers to incur unnecessary litigation costs and to operate in an uncertain environment," Jamison said a co-written editorial last year. Now the director of the Public Utility Research Center at University of Florida, Jamison also declined comment.
Netflix vs AT&T
The issue of Net neutrality has divided telecom and tech companies for years, with Netflix, Google, Twitter and other household tech names backing the agency's need for such authority to prevent ISPs from promoting their own content over that of other outlets.
Telecommunications giants such as AT&T and Verizon have countered, saying the agency used outdated authority given to public utilties that is more heavy-handed than needed to oversee the Internet. Their fight has gone to the courts, with Verizon successfully having the FCC's 2010 rules tossed out with its court challenge in 2014; AT&T and others are appealing a federal court's decision upholding the current rules.
Supporters of a less hands-on FCC see good signs. "l do think the appointment of Eisenach and Jamison is an indication that President-elect Trump is serious about achieving communications policy reform, including curtailing the reach of the agency's net neutrality and privacy orders and the set-top box proposal were it to be adopted," said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, a free market think-tank.
In a Washington Times editorial Monday, May said that "it’s undeniable that the Obama administration’s FCC has been on a regulatory binge, adopting a number of major overly burdensome and unduly costly new rules, despite the lack of evidence of market failure or consumer harm."
How could Net neutrality be overturned? "The new FCC could try to walk away from the rules. It could refuse to enforce them, try to wipe them off the books, or stop defending them on appeal," said Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, an awareness group that supported the rules.
The strongest action would be Congressional action, May says, "because it is more durable and can't be easily reversed." New legislation could remove the FCC's oversight of the Internet service providers as "common carriers" and the Net itself as a public utility. The FCC based its new rules on authority from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
"Republicans in both Congress and the FCC have expressed their antipathy towards Title II regulation," said research firm MoffettNathanson in a note to investors after the election. "A Congressional roll-back of Title II was never a serious option in a Democratic Administration: President Obama made clear that he stood ready with a veto. With the risk of a veto now gone, a legislative remedy now not only looks possible, but likely."
Beyond that, analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson said last week in a subsequent note, "It is likely ... that virtually every major FCC rule making of the past four years will be undone."
Record comments
However, Net neutrality rules are very popular and drew a record number of comments at the FCC — more than 4 million, notes Chris Lewis, vice president at Public Knowledge, a consumer tech advocacy group. Perhaps the Trump Administration will offer a counterproposal, he says, because many Congressional Republicans were in favor of an open Internet but against the FCC’s Net neutrality proposal.
"We think we have very good rules and we want to defend them," Lewis said, "and if folks want to eliminate these very important consumer protections that are wildly popular across ideological lines, the question is how are they going to protect an open Internet if they eliminate these rules?"
.
Net neutrality rules, passed in February 2015 by the Federal Communications Commission and supported by Netflix, Google and other big websites, prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking and slowing the transmission of content. The contentious issue triggered lawsuits from the ISPs and drew an unprecedented outpouring of public comments.
While Net neutrality wasn't a constant topic for President-Elect Donald Trump as a candidate, he has been an opponent of the regulations, calling the FCC's adoption "a power grab" by President Obama in a 2014 tweet.
And the President-Elect's latest appointments suggest he'll try to bolster that view, supported by telecommunication companies like Verizon and others, by reversing the rules. Jeffrey Eisenach, who joined Trump's transition team in October, and Mark Jamison, a former lobbyist for Sprint, were named Monday as a member of the "Agency Landing" team focusing on the FCC.
Both advisers opposed Net neutrality in the past. Net neutrality "is not about protecting consumers from rapacious Internet Service Providers ... Net neutrality is crony capitalism pure and simple – an effort by one group of private interests to enrich itself at the expense of another group by using the power of the state," wrote Eisenach in a 2014 article on the web site of the American Enterprise Institute, a free enterprise think tank where Eisenach was a visiting scholar from 2012 to 2016.
A recent New York Times article noted that some of Eisenach's work at the think-tank on FCC issues were supported by Verizon and the GSMA, a wireless trade group of which AT&T and Verizon are members.
Eisenach, who is currently the managing director and co-chair of the communications, media, and Internet practice at NERA Economic Consulting, declined comment on the administration's plans.
Jamison has also taken swings at the Obama Adminstration's net neutrality stance. The FCC has pursued "unilateral approach" on Net neutrality and other rulemaking procedures that "forces industry and consumers to incur unnecessary litigation costs and to operate in an uncertain environment," Jamison said a co-written editorial last year. Now the director of the Public Utility Research Center at University of Florida, Jamison also declined comment.
Netflix vs AT&T
The issue of Net neutrality has divided telecom and tech companies for years, with Netflix, Google, Twitter and other household tech names backing the agency's need for such authority to prevent ISPs from promoting their own content over that of other outlets.
Telecommunications giants such as AT&T and Verizon have countered, saying the agency used outdated authority given to public utilties that is more heavy-handed than needed to oversee the Internet. Their fight has gone to the courts, with Verizon successfully having the FCC's 2010 rules tossed out with its court challenge in 2014; AT&T and others are appealing a federal court's decision upholding the current rules.
Supporters of a less hands-on FCC see good signs. "l do think the appointment of Eisenach and Jamison is an indication that President-elect Trump is serious about achieving communications policy reform, including curtailing the reach of the agency's net neutrality and privacy orders and the set-top box proposal were it to be adopted," said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, a free market think-tank.
In a Washington Times editorial Monday, May said that "it’s undeniable that the Obama administration’s FCC has been on a regulatory binge, adopting a number of major overly burdensome and unduly costly new rules, despite the lack of evidence of market failure or consumer harm."
How could Net neutrality be overturned? "The new FCC could try to walk away from the rules. It could refuse to enforce them, try to wipe them off the books, or stop defending them on appeal," said Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, an awareness group that supported the rules.
The strongest action would be Congressional action, May says, "because it is more durable and can't be easily reversed." New legislation could remove the FCC's oversight of the Internet service providers as "common carriers" and the Net itself as a public utility. The FCC based its new rules on authority from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
"Republicans in both Congress and the FCC have expressed their antipathy towards Title II regulation," said research firm MoffettNathanson in a note to investors after the election. "A Congressional roll-back of Title II was never a serious option in a Democratic Administration: President Obama made clear that he stood ready with a veto. With the risk of a veto now gone, a legislative remedy now not only looks possible, but likely."
Beyond that, analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson said last week in a subsequent note, "It is likely ... that virtually every major FCC rule making of the past four years will be undone."
Record comments
However, Net neutrality rules are very popular and drew a record number of comments at the FCC — more than 4 million, notes Chris Lewis, vice president at Public Knowledge, a consumer tech advocacy group. Perhaps the Trump Administration will offer a counterproposal, he says, because many Congressional Republicans were in favor of an open Internet but against the FCC’s Net neutrality proposal.
"We think we have very good rules and we want to defend them," Lewis said, "and if folks want to eliminate these very important consumer protections that are wildly popular across ideological lines, the question is how are they going to protect an open Internet if they eliminate these rules?"
.