OTI Urges FCC to Restore Authority to Hold ISPs Accountable and Update Rules

Yesterday, OTI filed comments urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to restore its authority to hold ISPs accountable for anti-consumer policies and behavior by reclassifying broadband internet access services as a Title II telecommunications service and reestablishing net neutrality protections across the United States. OTI’s comments urge the Commission to update its rules to address additional issues like “zero rating” and paid interconnection agreements, and to improve ISPs’ transparency to consumers about their broadband services.

Americans deserve better internet access — access that is not just fast and open, but also resilient, affordable, and accessible to everyone. Reliable high-speed internet access is essential to full participation in modern life, and it is vital that the FCC is empowered to oversee the practices of broadband providers to ensure they equitably serve every community’s needs.

Restoring the FCC’s Title II authority will empower the Commission not just to enforce fundamental open internet protections like blocking and throttling prohibitions, but also to address roadblocks to deploying broadband infrastructure, require reporting about network performance and resiliency, provide meaningful transparency about the internet service consumers are paying for, keep Americans connected during public emergencies, and tackle issues ranging from cybersecurity and privacy to public safety. By following the same legal framework that underpinned the FCC’s 2015 rules, the Commission is grounding its proposed rules on legal authorities that are familiar, well understood, and that have already been reviewed and endorsed by the courts.

Guided by its mission to ensure every community has equitable access to digital technology, OTI has offered its perspective on a number of questions put forth by the Commission, urging the commission to:

1. Address the harms posed to consumers when BIAS providers demand paid interconnection agreements in order to deliver traffic to internet users on their networks, noting that the Commission already took steps in this direction in 2016 when reviewing the Charter-Time Warner Cable merger;
2. Apply the same rules to mobile broadband as to fixed at-home broadband service by re-classifying BIAS as a ‘commercial mobile radio service’ and updating underlying definitions of statutory terms;
3. Begin the process of requiring BIAS providers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund to support the FCC’s current and future universal service and affordability programs;
4. Clarify that any forbearance related to ‘rate regulation’ does not limit the Commission’s ability to study the price of service for purposes including, but not limited to determining availability and affordability of BIAS, measuring competition in the marketplace, or identifying discriminatory practices or behavior;
5. Restore and improve upon the robust transparency requirements that were discarded by the Pai Commission, and to improve Broadband Information Label requirements;
6. Restore the general conduct rule that gives the Commission the flexibility to identify and tackle new harms as they arise;
7. Draw clear lines that identify acceptable zero-rating practices; and
8. Restore the framework for non-BIAS Services outlined by the 2015 rules, and harmonize with the stronger rules since adopted by California and the EU that non-BIAS data service not negatively impact BIAS performance for others and that non-BIAS data optimization be “objectively necessary.”

The following quote can be attributed to Raza Panjwani, Senior Policy Counsel at OTI:

“Internet access is too important to rely on a ‘scout’s honor’ promise from industry to consistently act in consumers’ best interest. The Pai Commission’s misguided decision to abandon the FCC’s oversight and consumer protection duties has left Americans at the mercy of companies that control their experience online. At a time when the United States is investing billions to finally connect all Americans to reliable high speed internet, and over 20 million households are benefitting from the Affordable Connectivity Program, it’s just common sense that there should be rules ensuring that Americans are getting what they pay for — reliable access to the full internet, free of interference.

“We support the FCC’s plan to restore its authority to hold ISPs accountable based on the same court-endorsed framework as the 2015 net neutrality rules, and urge the Commission to incorporate what we’ve learned in the last nine years to go further where warranted.”

In addition, the following can be attributed to Michael Calabrese, Wireless Future Project Director at OTI:

“Broadband users nationwide will finally have a consumer protection cop on the beat once the FCC restores the legal authority abdicated by the Trump FCC. We urge the Commission to reinstate strong network neutrality protections, including the stricter rules that California imposed on discriminatory zero-rating practices by the big mobile carriers. Our hope is that soon both the U.S. and Europe will be harmonized around strong protections for an open internet.”