The primary reason net neutrality has receded as an issue is that the FCC’s decision to repeal it was the right one.
The primary reason net neutrality has receded as an issue is that the FCC’s decision to repeal it was the right one.
D o you remember where you were five years ago today, on June 11, 2018? I’d be surprised if you don’t. For that was the day the internet ended — the day the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) repeal of so-called “net neutrality” regulations went into effect.
Why was this a big deal? What led apparent journalists to prepare lists like “The six terrible ways your life will change when Net Neutrality dies”? What led apparent celebrities like Alyssa Milano and Mark Ruffalo to issue fevered tweetstorms, saying that repeal of net neutrality was “one of the biggest” issues “threatening our democracy,” and an “authoritarian dream”? What led public officials to claim that this decision put “lives at risk”?
Some background is in order. Many say that net neutrality is about whether internet service providers (ISPs) can limit the transmission of or access to online content. But in practice, it actually involves a rather arcane question: How should the FCC classify broadband internet-access service? Should it be a heavily regulated “telecommunications service” under the Communications Act, like the monopoly Ma Bell’s telephone service a century ago? Or should it be a lightly regulated “information service,” free from preemptive micromanagement by the FCC?
At the dawn of the commercial internet, during the Clinton administration, William Kennard, one of my predecessors as FCC chairman, decided to lightly regulate this new technology. He wanted to encourage the massive private investments needed to build these networks, so he embraced a market-based approach. As he said in 1999, “the FCC has taken a hands-off, deregulatory approach to the broadband market.” He added: “If we’ve learned anything about the Internet in government over the last 15 years, it’s that it thrived quite nicely without the intervention of government. In fact, the best decision government ever made with respect to the Internet was the decision that the FCC made . . . NOT to impose regulation on it.” His successor, Michael Powell, extended this deregulatory framework in 2002, during the Bush administration — a decision ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court. The framework then remained during the first six years of the Obama administration.
This approach served American consumers well. We benefited from almost $2 trillion in network investment. Entrepreneurs developed new broadband applications and services that made our lives better. And the internet remained free and open.
Then, something happened.
Shortly after the 2014 midterm elections (which went well for Republicans, delivering them control of the Senate and strengthening their House majority), President Obama published a YouTube video and blog post “urging” the FCC — an independent agency — to regulate the internet like a slow-moving utility. The FCC chairman at the time, who had previously proposed to maintain broadband’s “information service” classification, promptly caved, embracing a heavy-handed regulatory approach and delighting the White House and partisan activists.
I dissented from this decision at the time. I pointed out that the internet was just fine, rendering regulation pointless. As I put it then, the rules were “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.” And I worried that they would reduce the incentive to invest in next-generation networks, slowing broadband deployment and prolonging the digital divide. That worry was well-founded. Following the FCC’s decision, and for the first time outside of a recession, independent studies showed that investment in broadband infrastructure declined.
In January 2017, times changed with the new Trump administration. The new president designated me chairman of the FCC shortly after Inauguration Day. In May of that year, we proposed to repeal these regulations. In December, we voted to do so. And on June 11, 2018 — five years ago today — that repeal took effect.
Going only on press coverage, social media, and political rhetoric, you would have been justified in preparing for civilization’s demise.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) proclaimed, as did “news” outlet CNN, that this was “the end of the Internet as we know it.” Not to be outdone, a columnist at the New York Times moaned that “the freewheeling internet has been dying a slow death,” and that repealing net neutrality rules “would be the final pillow in its face.” The Senate Democratic Caucus’s Twitter account proclaimed, “If we don’t save net neutrality, you’ll get the internet one word at a time” — putting each word on a separate line to emphasize the danger. Famed telecommunications regulatory experts like anonymous street artist Banksy and Silicon Valley representative Ro Khanna predicted that internet applications would become pay-per-view, with consumers having to pay $1.99 per Google search or to purchase them in packages. And for good measure, multiple U.S. senators called the decision “un-American.”
On top of this, there was no end of hyperbole about how every conceivable group would suffer. GLAAD claimed that “without net neutrality, censorship and erasure of the LGBTQ community is not only possible, but inevitable.” The Black Women’s Health Imperative and the National Hispanic Media Coalition warned that “for low-income Americans and people of color, who have been historically underserved by the healthcare system, ending net neutrality could dramatically reduce access to life-saving health services.” The highly partisan special interest group Free Press argued that “without Net Neutrality, ISPs could block speech and prevent dissident voices from speaking freely online. Without Net Neutrality, people of color would lose a vital platform.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops claimed that “we might be forced to pay fees to ensure that our high-bandwidth content receives fair treatment on the internet.” Even the National Association of Realtors jumped in, warning that without net-neutrality regulations, real-estate agents would face barriers in sharing property-listing information online. (Amusingly, the Supreme Court earlier this year rejected the Association’s petition to review a federal appeals-court decision that it may have violated antitrust law by impeding rival real-estate services from developing their own online-listing databases. Has an echo of a net-neutrality violation too, doesn’t it?)
Some organizations twisted themselves into pretzels, declaring that even good things to come for consumers were bad. For instance, the ACLU — perhaps too eager to join the motley bandwagon — argued that one example of how ISPs “are violating our rights, right now,” was that Verizon FiOS was “giving free Netflix for a year to new broadband customers” and that AT&T “also started giving out free HBO to new customers.” Want to binge-watch Squid Game or Game of Thrones for free? You may be a victim of the FCC’s dastardly decision to get rid of net neutrality!
In sum, the critics were confident and clear: A digital apocalypse was upon us. Half a decade later, we can now make a sober assessment of their predictions. Were they right?
In an era defined by the paranoid style of American political argument, it may not surprise you to learn that they were not. In fact, they were diametrically wrong. The evidence is indisputable today that in the five years since the FCC’s decision to repeal net-neutrality regulations went into effect, American consumers are benefiting from broadband networks that are stronger and more extensive than ever. According to independent measurement service Ookla, average fixed broadband speeds in the U.S. are 287 percent faster today than they were in June 2018 (269.28 Mbps download speeds today versus 93.98 Mbps in 2018). Average mobile broadband speeds have increased even more, at 570 percent (156.51 Mbps versus 27.47 Mbps). Millions more Americans have access to the internet today compared with 2018, thanks in large part to private investment in digital infrastructure.
And on top of that, consumers are benefiting from more choice than in 2018. Indeed, competition has not just increased but transformed since then. Residential fiber deployment hit an all-time high last year. Wireless companies like T-Mobile are providing high-speed 5G fixed wireless service to millions of customers. Companies like Starlink are launching low-Earth-orbit satellites to support residential-broadband service, especially in harder-to-reach rural areas. And cable companies are expanding their footprint and upgrading their systems to enable much faster speeds.
The contrast between America’s broadband consumers and their European counterparts during the Covid-19 pandemic is telling. Americans with internet access largely were able to rely on broadband networks to do videoconference calls, stream in high-definition, and otherwise stay connected. Abroad, however, a key European commissioner felt compelled to ask streaming services to throttle video content to standard definition. Why? Because he feared that otherwise digital “infrastructures might be in strain.” I’d argue they were “in strain” partly because the European Union has had quite strict net-neutrality regulations that meaningfully undermine the incentive for investment in high-capacity broadband infrastructure. Fortunately, neither I nor any other public official in the United States had to make a similar request, then or since.
Now, to be fair, one prediction the critics made was accurate — sort of. Over the past five years, online consumers have indeed been blocked from posting or accessing politically disfavored content. But the blocking has come not from network operators that had been subject to net-neutrality regulations but from Big Tech companies — the very companies that for years lobbied for strict net-neutrality regulations in a classic case of regulatory arbitrage. Perhaps the most glaring example of this hypocrisy is Twitter, prior to Elon Musk’s acquisition. Years ago, the company darkly opined that repealing net neutrality would give ISPs the “final word” over “millions of people who use Twitter to share their thoughts, start movements, speak truth to power, or find out what’s happening in the world.” At the time, I noted the pot–kettle issue at play: “When it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter [itself] is a part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.” Now, thanks to greater openness under new management, we know that Twitter indeed engaged in conduct that, were it an ISP, could plausibly violate the very net-neutrality rules it claimed to support, like the blocking prohibition (just ask the New York Post). More generally, both the Left and the Right have come to recognize that to the extent there’s a gatekeeper these days for online speech, it’s not ISPs but Big Tech. This may explain why there’s support across the political spectrum — from President Biden to Senator Lindsey Graham — and perhaps even at the Supreme Court for reforming or reinterpreting Section 230, which immunizes these companies from liability for content moderation.
Five years from that seminal June day when net-neutrality regulations were repealed, you probably don’t hear much about the issue anymore. I don’t either. In fact, the closest it comes is when someone stops me and asks whether I still have the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup mug that John Oliver helped make famous in 2017 during his fact-free rant about net neutrality. (Answer: You bet I do.) The primary reason the issue has receded is that the FCC’s decision was the right one: It has resulted in enormous benefits for broadband consumers. Conversely, the over-the-top rhetoric has over time revealed itself to those of good faith as, well . . . completely over-the-top. And I suppose those who were simply looking for a reason to be outraged now have moved on to the next thing. In any event, if you’ve read to this point, congratulations: You managed to survive the end of the internet as we know it and can now tell your story — even online.