FCC Votes to Gut Broadband 'Nutrition Labels.' Here’s What It Means for You

OTI Senior Policy Counsel Raza Panjwani was quoted in a CNET article about the Federal Communications Commission's latest vote on broadband labels.

I’ve been writing about broadband for seven years, and I can tell you firsthand how difficult it is to find basic plan information from many ISPs. Between price increases, hidden fees and advertised speeds, it felt like you needed a law degree to find out what you’d actually be paying each month.

When broadband labels were implemented in April 2024, all of that changed overnight. You could suddenly see the real price that would show up on your bill today -- and years down the line. Now, the FCC looks poised to return internet customers to the dark.

“It’s the start of whittling away at these rules,” Raza Panjwani, senior policy counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute, told CNET. “You get this two-step, right? You make it less useful. Then you say, ‘Oh, look, it's not that useful. We should get rid of it.’”