FCC Ensuring Net Neutrality: Good For Fans of Sports, Everything Else

On Wednesday, Wired published an opinion piece written by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler which unveils proposed rules to “preserve the internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression.” YES to real network neutrality and NO to fast lanes fantasies dreamed up by internet service providers. Can we get an amen? AMEN! Need a refresher on net neutrality? Check out this short video from Stanford Law School professor Barbara Van Schewick in which she explains why this direction is critical to the future of the country’s economy. Van Schewick is also the director of the law school’s Center for Internet and Society.

Over the last 15 years, the internet has been the sporting world’s performance enhancing drug. Twitter has changed the way fans engage socially. The emergence of streaming media has changed the way fans watch live sporting events, thanks to MLB.TV and streaming Super Bowls. Sports web sites and blogs, such as the monster that is SB Nation, have injected fans with focalized news and rumors to cater to their interests while building a community to digest the 24/7 news cycle. There are no more water cooler conversations. Because there’s the internet.  Mix in growing mobile device consumption and you have an industry that hangs on a consumer with a fast, affordable connection. It’s why net neutrality, whether you’re for it or against, is so important to sports fans.

Wheeler takes advantage of Title II of the Communications Act to implement and enforce his proposal with the authority to selectively decide not to enforce sections of the act, which were put in to place 80 years ago. He writes that his rules will “ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.” And he intends to fully apply these rules to mobile broadband. He promises no rate regulation, which should calm some fears of those that oppose the government’s wrap around our internet. “All of this can be accomplished while encouraging investment in broadband networks,” Wheeler said in the piece. “To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks.”

But that’s not to say Wheeler’s proposal is a perfect one. Gigaom’s Stacey Higginbotham wrote a fantastic summary of a fact sheet the FCC distributed regarding Wheeler’s plans to implement net neutrality. In that piece, Higginbotham sounded off on a loophole which should concern us all:

Finally we have the catch-all rule, which seems to be the agency’s way of future-proofing the open internet as much as it can. The proposal would create a general Open Internet conduct standard stating that ISPs cannot harm consumers or edge providers. It’s likely that things like zero-rating and sponsored data plans such as the one that AT&T offers will be adjudicated under the general conduct rule.

While it sounds nice, a concern is that the more things that fall under this vague general conduct rule, the more flexibility the agency will have in determining what a network neutrality violation is. Flexibility can be a good thing, but in the government, it can also change with each administration and the political climate. I am concerned that this could be a loophole, but a senior FCC official objected to that characterization. “We see this as a safety net to catch any issues that are not covered as a bright line rule and to protect against new practices that may discriminate.”

The five commissioners will vote on Wheeler’s plan on February 26. If it passes, expect the broadband providers to tie this up in court for a long, long time.

Back to Van Schewick’s video. Her key question is who gets to decide what we do on the internet, the consumers or the ISPs? It seems to be a simple answer, right? Not according to some. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas infamously referred to net neutrality as the “Obamacare for the internet” in November. To give the senator, along with those against net neutrality, a fair space, check out Cruz’s speech below.

Cruz fears politicians and the government will over regulate the internet with Title II, and believes that this will stifle innovation. In his #dontmesswiththenet campaign, Cruz warns that regulations will favor the “big guys with armies of lobbyists” and will burden start ups and entrepreneurs. But isn’t that really what the ISPs will do? Their boatloads of cash are already backing an assault against a plan that will protect consumers and maintain the internet that we’ve grown to love. How can anyone be against protecting an open, fast and fair internet, as Wheeler proposes? It’s because they’ll be negatively affected financially. And those are the ISPs. They’ll continue to lose cable customers as the number of cord cutters grow and won’t be able to charge higher fees for faster internet, as many assume they would. They’d get away with it if it wasn’t for that meddling FCC. And really, the only reason Cruz can justify his position and statements, which many have referred to as ignorant, is because those same ISPs must be funding his retirement. Or at least giving him free access the premium movie channels.

“The internet I want my kids to have is like the internet we have today,” Van Schewick says in the video.

And yes, agreed. Ultimately it’s what we all want, right?

We just want this internet that we know today to stay the same. My children should totally grow up with the freedom to stream movies from 20 years ago, watch three-star TV shows instead of doing homework or reading a book, battling friends online with the Xbox Twenty and learning the subtle nuances of the intimate relationships of pizza delivery men, naughty nurses and babysitters with pigtails. Because this is America, am I right?

Image via DonkeyHotey