President-elect Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20 will mark the end of a Democratic-majority Federal Communications Commission. Party-line votes from recent years may be overturned, most notably the agency’s hugely controversial “net neutrality” regulations. But Republicans won’t have carte blanche.
Last month, Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chairman of the FCC, not only revealed that he will step down as chairman, but he also said he would not finish his term as a commissioner, which expires in June 2018. With Wheeler gone, and with Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also leaving the commission by Jan. 3, the five-member panel will be left with two Republicans and one Democrat.
While a GOP majority seems certain if Trump’s nominees are confirmed by the Senate, the new president will be limited by an FCC rule that prevents more than three members of one party being on the commission at the same time.
Ajit Pai, the longest-serving Republican commissioner, is expected to be named interim chairman, and has set his sights on re-examining net neutrality “as soon as possible.”
The agency’s Democrats and companies such as Netflix and Google that rely on mass public use of Internet bandwidth, hailed the net neutrality regulations as a way to prevent service providers from blocking or throttling web content. They oppose any suggestions that content providers should be either allowed or obliged to pay for preferential treatment. Meanwhile, major telecommunications players such as Comcast and AT&T have warned against the undue burden on competition and threats to innovation and infrastructure investment. FCC Republicans are concerned about the commission’s “unmitigated power” to regulate the Internet.
Days after Trump’s election victory, Pai said in a speech that he was “more confident than ever” that his prediction that net neutrality regulation’s days are numbered would come true.
But the GOP-led agency will be hard pressed to justify a drastic change. When it held its open comment period in 2014, nearly 4 million members of the public filed comments, a record according to the Obama administration. Many favored stricter regulations. A legal challenge to net neutrality also ended in June, when a federal appeals court upheld the government’s regulations. Even if Pai and his Republican colleagues are successful, it is unclear whether they would completely take apart net neutrality rules or replace them with less stringent regulations.
Supporters of net neutrality don’t foresee a credible threat to the regulation.
“No, I don’t think net neutrality is on its last legs,” Chris Lewis, vice president at Public Knowledge, a tech advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner.
“There has long been bipartisan support in Washington for protecting an open Internet through net neutrality rules. The public overwhelmingly supports having rules. We currently have a strong set of rules that protect the public and free market competition online. Stepping away from this consensus position is misguided and removes protections consumers and online companies rely on.”
Also in jeopardy is any followup to the FCC’s fledgling conflict with a telecom pricing strategy known as zero rating, which allows customers to stream video services owned by a wireless carrier without eating into their data plan. In a letter dated Nov. 9, the agency wrote to AT&T that a preliminary finding of the company’s DirecTV Now violates net neutrality because it “may obstruct competition and harm consumers” because it could obstruct access to competing content producers.
Wireless provider companies, including AT&T and Verizon, and supporters of zero rating argue that the strategy gives consumers an opportunity to receive more of a service for lower prices.
“Even if I thought net neutrality was a good idea, zero rating is not the first battle I would pick. Why attack a feature that gives consumers more utility for less cost?”, wrote Steven Titch, an associate fellow of the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank.
The Wheeler-led FCC still has a few weeks in which it could assert its agenda, including passing judgment on zero rating.
But as AT&T warned in a letter following Wheeler’s announcement that he would be leaving the FCC, any ruling the agency “purports to pass on this program before January 20 will very likely be reversed shortly thereafter.”
