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FCC chief: US agency to vote to repeal 'net neutrality' rules
WASHINGTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission on Tuesday unveiled plans to repeal a landmark
2015 order that barred internet service providers from blocking or
slowing down consumer access to web content, and said the regulator will
prevent states and cities from adopting similar protections.
FCC
chief Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump in
January, said the commission will vote at a Dec. 14 meeting on
rescinding the so-called net neutrality rules championed by Democratic
former President Barack Obama that treated internet service providers
like public utilities.
With three Republican and two Democratic
commissioners, the move is all but certain to be approved. Trump, a
Republican, expressed his opposition to net neutrality in 2014 before
the regulations were even implemented, calling it a "power grab" by
Obama.
"The FCC will no longer be in the business of micromanaging business
models and preemptively prohibiting services and applications and
products that could be pro-competitive," Pai said in an interview,
adding that the Obama administration had sought to pick winners and
losers and exercised "heavy-handed" regulation of the internet.
"We
should simply set rules of the road that let companies of all kinds in
every sector compete and let consumers decide who wins and loses," Pai
added.
The net neutrality rules, aimed at giving consumers equal
access to web content, also forbade broadband providers from charging
consumers more for certain content, a practice called "paid
prioritization."
Pai said state and local governments "need to be
preempted" from imposing their own net neutrality rules because
broadband internet service is "inherently an interstate service." The
preemption is most likely to handcuff Democratic-governed states and
localities that could have considered their own plans to protect
consumers' equal access to internet content.
The FCC's planned
action represents a victory for internet service providers including
AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc, which had
urged the FCC to revoke the rules. The companies have said that
repealing the could lead to billions of dollars in additional broadband
investment and eliminate the possibility that a future presidential
administration could regulate internet pricing.
In July, a group
representing major technology firms including Google parent Alphabet Inc
and Facebook Inc had urged Pai to drop plans to rescind the rules.
At the December meeting, the FCC will vote on Pai's proposal to
require internet service providers to disclose whether they allow
blocking or slowing down of consumer web access or permit so-called
internet fast lanes to facilitate paid prioritization. Such disclosure
will make it easier for another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to
act against internet service providers that fail to disclose such
conduct to consumers, Pai said.
The FCC under Obama regulated
internet service providers like public utilities under a section of
federal law that gave the agency sweeping oversight over the conduct of
these companies.
A federal appeals court last year upheld the
legality of the net neutrality regulations, which were challenged in a
lawsuit led by a telecommunications industry trade association.
'GONE FOR GOOD'
The
FCC's repeal is certain to draw a legal challenge from advocates of net
neutrality. Many Democrats and some internet firms argue that without
the rules, internet providers will threaten the openness of the
internet.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat,
wrote on Twitter, "The internet is the public square of the 21st
century. Unless we all speak out against the @FCC's efforts to gut
#netneutrality, the free and open internet we know today could be gone
for good."
The planned repeal represents the latest example of a
legacy achievement of Obama being erased since Trump, a
businessman-turned-politician, took office in January. Trump has
abandoned international trade deals, the landmark Paris climate accord
and environmental protections, taken aim at the Iran nuclear accord and
closer relations with Cuba, and sought repeal Obama's signature
healthcare law.
The new order will reclassify internet providers as "information
services" rather than a "telecommunication service," which means the FCC
has significantly less authority to oversee the web. The FCC granted
initial approval to Pai's plan in May, but had left open many key
questions including whether to retain any legal requirements limiting
internet providers conduct.
Pai, who has moved quickly to undo numerous regulatory actions since
taking over as chairman, is mounting a broad deregulatory agenda and has
pledged to take a "weed whacker" to unneeded regulations. Pai said he
had not shared his plans on the rollback with the White House in advance
or been directed to undo the order by White House officials.
Pai
said the FCC is adopting a "market-based deregulatory approach." The FCC
also will vote to eliminate the "internet conduct standard," which
gives the FCC far-reaching discretion to prohibit any internet service
provider practice that it believes violates a long list of factors and
sought to address future discriminatory conduct.
Pai said his goal
is to use a "light-touch market-based" regulatory approach, arguing the
internet operated well before the rules were adopted in 2015. The
internet "is the greatest free market innovation in history," Pai said,
adding that government regulations could hinder that. (Reporting by
David Shepardson)
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