Comment 8: Re-neutralizing the Internet

On 25 April of this year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to restore net neutrality. Originally issued in 2015, the net neutrality order required internet service providers (ISP) to treat all traffic on its networks equally. Two years later, the order was repealed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during a new administration. What is net neutrality and why is this happening?

As stated, net neutrality is concerned with how data moves through networks; more specifically, the FTC order determined that ISPs fall under the classification of “common carrier” under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. As a common carrier, ISPs were prevented from blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization of traffic. The often used example of this involves Comcast:

Comcast functions as a multinational telecommunications and media company. Among its many business segments are the ISP Xfinity and the online streaming service Peacock. Under net neutrality Comcast cannot allow their Xfinity service to prefer Peacock by “speeding up” their connection. Further, Comcast is also prevented from “slowing down” the connection of Peacock’s competitor Netflix.

While there has never been any direct evidence of an ISP doing this either before the order passed in 2015 or after its repeal in 2017, net neutrality’s need is because of how easy it would be to do. As companies continue to grow and expand into related or tangential sidelines this kind of self-dealing becomes more likely. Despite the rise of anti-trust cases, companies keep getting bigger. In other words, net neutrality was in place to prevent bad behavior rather than to stop it.

So why are we bringing net neutrality back? Why did it go away? The answer, no matter your own stance, is partisan politics and private interest. This also highlights the concerns about consistency between administrations in the United States. Consistency is important in both politics and business. The latter especially. Though financial markets thrive on volatility, business does not. We see this as more and more businesses are supporting a federal privacy law over the current hodgepodge of state rules.

With any luck, we’ll have some consistency.

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