Federal Communications Commission vote in favor of open internet

The Federal Communications Commission made a landmark decision on Thursday to keep the internet neutral — meaning UNC students will be able to binge watch House of Cards at the same price and speed for the foreseeable future.

The commission’s decision prevents major cable companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast from creating “fast lanes” for users and companies.

In a 3-2 decision, the FCC voted in favor of a plan to reclassify Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, as common carriers instead of information service providers under the Telecommunications Act. The FCC’s previous set of rules were struck down by a federal court last year.

The commission had gathered millions of public comments on proposed rules to keep the internet neutral — which stemmed in part from comedian John Oliver’s net neutrality episode on “Last Week Tonight.” The June 2014 episode received 8.4 million views on YouTube.

Jeremy Gillula, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said net neutrality is unique because of the public response it received.

“They watched John Oliver on YouTube and after they stopped laughing, realized ‘Yeah, maybe I should go send some comments to the FCC,’ and it led to 4 million people submitting comments, which is a record number for the FCC,” he said.

The FCC plans to keep the internet free and open by enacting new rules which will prevent ISPs from blocking access to content, from impairing internet traffic and from charging users based on the amount of bandwidth they use.

It is not yet known when the official regulations will be put in place. Gillula said that from what is known so far, the new rules are promising.

“They ensure that ISPs can’t block or throttle or discriminate in any way against users,” he said. “That’s a huge win because we know that ISPs have been chomping at the bit to do this, and even have done it on some occasions in the past, so preventing them from doing it in the future is definitely a big win.”

The rules aren’t a government takeover of the internet, Gillula said.

“It’s important to note that this is not the FCC regulating the internet. It’s the FCC regulating internet access,” he said.

Tori Ekstrand, a UNC media law professor said depending on the final details, this is a win for open internet advocates.

“Although we do not yet have access to the official plan, the ruling went the way that many net neutrality advocates hoped it would,” she said. “I think that a lot of us are cautiously optimistic.”

Ekstrand said telecommunication debates aren’t new to the FCC, but it responded to net neutrality more quickly.

“I think the administration was very crafty in getting this put together quite quickly and comprehensively and getting it before the commission in pretty short order,” Ekstrand said.

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