FCC Proposes New Set of Net Neutrality Rules

 

March 10, 2014, vol.43, no.10, pp.1-2

The following is excerpted from this week's Library Hotline:
 

FCC Proposes New Set of Net Neutrality Rules

In the wake of a January court ruling that struck down the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) standards for ensuring that Internet traffic is delivered without bias— a standard industry watchers refer to as “net neutrality”—the agency has issued a new proposal outlining a set of rules that would ensure Internet users have equal access to the full content of the Internet. Some experts, though, don’t think these new rules will be any more enforceable than the ones that were overturned earlier this year.

FCC Chair Tom Wheeler outlined his proposal in a statement on February 19 [see Fact Sheet]. While the newly minted FCC proposition makes some technical changes to the law, the heart of the agency’s definition of an Open Internet remains largely the same, working to ensure that no providers are blocked or discriminated against, and that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are transparent in telling consumers how they allocate bandwidth on their networks.

Wheeler also noted that the FCC would not challenge the ruling handed down last month from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling allowed the FCC to continue enforcing transparency in ISP practices and working to ensure broadband access under Section 706 of the Telecommunication Act of1996. The FCC’s new plan is to make rules similar to those that were recently struck down but this time under the authority of Section 706.

“In light of the Court’s finding that the Commission has authority to issue new rules under Section 706 and the ongoing availability of Title II, the Commission will not initiate any further judicial action in connection with the Verizon decision,” Wheeler’s statement read. The current statement is merely a suggestion, with a more formal set of rules expected sometime in late spring.

Just how much success the FCC will have enforcing these new rules under Section 706, though, remains to be seen. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there’s a lot riding on Wheeler and his commissioners ensuring that ISPs can’t discriminate among kinds of traffic.

“We’re really pleased to see that Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are moving forward and revisiting these rules, and we certainly hope they’re successful this time,” said Lynne Bradley, director of ALA’s Office of Government Relations. “This is a go-to- the-mat issue. The American public can’t afford for them not to get this right.

"If Net Neutrality Goes, What Impact on Service to Kids?"

 

February 24, 2014, vol.43, no.8, pp.4-5

The following is quoted directly from this week's Library Hotline:

If Net Neutrality Goes, What Impact on Service to Kids?

Like most people, I’d never hear of the term [net neutrality] before a few weeks ago,” American Association of School Libraries president Gail Dickinson told Hotline. “It’s a protection we enjoyed.”

Without net neutrality, also known as the open Internet, kids’ access to online resources could be negatively impacted, with commercial sites and services eclipsing other content online, Dickinson and others said.

Uninitiated librarians gained a better understanding of net neutrality last month, after a court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not have the authority to impose net neutrality rules on Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Verizon, opening the door to an Internet where companies could pay ISPs for faster broadband delivery of their content, as reported in Library Journal [see January 14^th article and Rebecca T. Miller’s February 19^th editorial] and elsewhere.

Defenders of net neutrality, including librarians, fear that this decision will privilege material from organizations that can afford to pay ISPs and also thwart innovation.

“We don’t want Disney over library services,” said Lynne Bradley, director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office of Government Relations. “We don’t want entertainment to be coming up first.”

Without the principles of net neutrality in place, “Kids will get different access depending on what school district they’re in,” said Frances Jacobsen Harris, librarian at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, IL, and the author of I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online (ALA Editions, 2011). “It will hurt kids in the have-not districts.”

Rather than looking ahead to what she thinks would only be “Band-Aid” solutions, Jacobsen Harris supports those who insist that the FCC must act to redefine the Internet as a common carrier or public utility in order to preserve equal content delivery. The common carrier term in U.S. communications law says that public networks like the telephone must be open to everyone at the same cost and without discrimination.

“The FCC continues to treat ISPs as information providers rather than as telecommunications providers, which are subject to common carrier rules,” Jacobsen Harris told Hotline. “The only way the FCC is going to get around this is to go back and say the Internet is a public utility.”

Dickinson said that “another parallel is the filtering law,” whereby the end result is unequal content delivery to students. “What we’re really doing here is taking a backhoe and a bulldozer to the digital divide,” she told Hotline. “We’re making it bigger and wider and deeper.”

The Open Internet Preservation Act [H.R. 3982], introduced on February 3 by U.S. Representatives Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo (both D-CA), would “protect consumers and innovation online,” according to a press release on Representative Waxman’s site.

The bill was announced the same day that the FCC pledged an additional $2 billion for high-speed Internet access for schools and libraries over the next two years and President Obama announced a $750 million private sector commitment to support tech in schools.