Washington Appeals Court Nullifies FCC Rules for Net Neutrality

The Washington D.C. Court of Appeals nullified the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)  Rules for Net Neutrality or the Open Internet Order on Tuesday, January 14. This means the net neutrality is buried at the moment. The open Internet rules of 2010 were established to prevent the Internet service providers from slowing or blocking the Internet user’s connections to online applications and content. This meant that the delivery of online content and users’ access to news and entertainment should have equal treatment, regardless of Internet service provider. The decision of the court means that this freedom will now be curtailed.

The ruling

The court ruling was based on a technicality in how the FCC’s Open Internet Order was written. The court said that the FCC failed to establish that they have the legal ruling over their own policy. The FCC created the anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules, which prevented ISPs from putting priority on some forms of Internet traffic over other content. The FCC had relegated the ISPs as exempt from common carrier treatment. Some common carriers include utilities, trucking companies, airlines and railroads. The ruling also said that while the FCC has general authority to regulate, it does not have the authority to impose requirements that violate legal mandates.

What the ruling means

Because the open Internet rule is now shut down, this means that the ISPs will be able to charge users based on the content they want to access, in the same way that cable TV allows you to choose the TV channels you want to view and pay package rates for. This means the leading ISPs can decide which Internet services will be available to consumers subscribing to their networks.

This can eventually have a domino-effect. For example, AT&T or Verizon and other Internet service providers can demand payment from Google for them to make sure that YouTube videos can be accessed by their subscribers. Or there could be some form of compensation for delivering Internet content faster. This means that what you can access today might be difficult to access later as business and company competition is thrown into the mix.

FCC’s stand

The commission may have lost this round but FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said that they will consider available options, including filing an appeal so that the networks on which the Internet is dependent will continue to provide an open and free platform.

There had been precedents about discrimination as far back as 2007 when there was a report about Comcast Corporation interfering with subscribers that were sharing video files online through the BitTorrent service. While Comcast said that they  did it because it was clogging their networks, public interest groups became worried that other broadband providers were policing online content that might interfere with their business. This was one of the reasons for the 2010 rules of the FCC.

This FCC case was filed by Verizon. After the court ruling, Verizon said that the company would not change how their consumers use and access the Internet. The company added that this would actually give them room to innovate and provide consumers with more choices for a better Internet experience.

So what happens now? At the moment, things are at the waiting stage, as appeals are being prepared. For now, this is how it stands, according to SaveTheInternet.com:

“This ruling means that just a few powerful phone and cable companies could control the Internet. Without Net Neutrality, ISPs will be able to devise new schemes to charge users more for access and services, making it harder for us to communicate online — and easier for companies to censor our speech. The Internet could come to resemble cable TV, where gatekeepers exert control over where you go and what you see.

Without Net Neutrality, ISPs like AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon will be able to block content and speech they don’t like, reject apps that compete with their own offerings, and prioritize Web traffic (reserving the fastest loading speeds for the highest bidders and sticking everyone else with the slowest).”

Image attributed to DigitalPhotosNet photoraidz