National broadband plan and the uncertain future of the Internet

In consumer technology, many things improve with age. Compare broadband speeds, tablets and 4G service from five years ago with what’s available today.  They’re all better, faster and more powerful. 

But a few things, unfortunately, become worse – and nothing declined more sharply than the foresight of U.S. Internet policy. That became obvious on February 26 when the FCC voted 3-2 to place the Internet under “Title II” public utility regulations.  Although billed as the FCC’s next attempt to install rules to protect an open Internet, these rules, written in 1934, were designed for the Depression-era rotary telephone and other long-gone services. These rules are unsuited for today’s complex digital technologies. And these rules were not the rules a prior Court decision regarding the open Internet suggested that the FCC follow.

{mosads}There was an unsettling irony to the FCC’s decision as it took place so close to the fifth anniversary of the Commission’s seminal National Broadband Plan. That document was a roadmap meant to help communities – especially traditionally underserved areas – connect and participate in the equalizing medium that is the Internet. At great cost of both time and money, the FCC wrote this plan to “ensure every American has access to broadband capability.”

But that was 2010.  Today, despite the clear ongoing need to promote Internet adoption and infrastructure build out, particularly in minority communities, federal policy is moving in the opposite direction than the vision of the National Broadband Plan.  Instead of encouraging faster Internet access, the Commission shifted toward harsh regulation. Specifically, it approved placing the Internet’s traditionally freewheeling, dynamic operations under federal micromanagement.

What will happen next is both predictable and frustrating: Lawsuits, court appeals, and delays that slow the billions in investment needed to sustain world-class Internet service. 

One of the key potential drawbacks to the FCC’s stated goals to protect the Internet is that the FCC could actually lose the resulting lawsuits, which are going to invariably arise.  As we look more closely each day at the FCC’s overreach, more and more people are realizing just how legally tenuous the FCC’s actions were.  And, if the FCC loses – for the third time – no further legal rationale exists for the FCC to base its net neutrality principles.  The FCC will have exhausted its rules, exhausted its efforts, and exhausted the industry – and the FCC will have nothing to show for almost a decade of efforts.

Rarely has there been a greater and more obvious need for Congressional action.  The five unelected officials who approved placing the Internet under Title II rules rolled back a policy established during the Clinton Administration that helped make our Internet service vastly superior to Europe’s and created a mobile network so successful that more than two in every five American homes have only wireless phone service.

The Internet is too important both to our economy and the Latino community for Congress to allow this indefensible FCC decision to stand. More than 70 percent of Latinos over 18 own smartphones, far higher than the national average. Policies that hurt the progress of America’s wireless Internet should be a major concern for elected officials.

America’s Internet is at a crossroads.  With this recent FCC vote, we are on a path to bureaucratic delays, legal uncertainty, chilled investment and overall mediocrity.  The remarkable advantages we built up during the past decade of “light touch” regulation that unleashed tens of billions of dollars of investment will be needlessly squandered.

The Internet is too important to the very fiber of our society.  It is crucial to the future of healthcare, education and civic involvement.  We urge Congress to join together and reach across the aisle, to take action now, both to protect the open Internet as well as to ensure that the right rules are in place to make certain that consumers will be able to access the advanced Internet-based networks we need to remain connected in a 21^st century world.  Our modern Internet is too vital to be tied down by burdensome federal regulatory policies and we hope Congress is spurred into action to bring us the best possible open Internet protections, based on legally sound rules that encourage investment and broadband network infrastructure build.

Mendoza is executive director of the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership.