FCC releases rules on net neutrality

Two weeks after voting to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday released 313 pages of rules detailing what would be allowed.

The release of the rules had been eagerly awaited by advocates and lawmakers, as well as broadband and technology companies. The publication resulted in few surprises, with the FCC set to decide what is acceptable case by case. The regulations include a subjective catchall provision requiring “just and reasonable” conduct.

The rules reclassify high-speed Internet as a telecommunications service rather than an information one, subjecting providers to stricter regulation under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Their aim is to protect the open Internet, advancing principles of “net neutrality” by prohibiting broadband providers from elevating one kind of content over another.

With the FCC set to decide on matters individually, the agency moves into a new position of prominence and a more active controlling role, one that is widely expected to be challenged in court by broadband providers such as Verizon.

The debate about how to preserve the open Internet has persisted for more than a decade, and the FCC’s new rules are not its first attempt to protect it. But the issue picked up steam over the last year, with President Barack Obama taking the unusual action of publicly urging the independent agency to take the specific action of subjecting high-speed Internet service providers to Title II regulation.

As the federal regulator shaped the initial draft of its new rules last year, a record number of people wrote in. The agency received more than 4 million public comments, nearly three times the previous record reached in response to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl.

“Five years ago, who would have heard much of the FCC?” asked Roger Entner, telecommunications expert and lead analyst and founder of Recon Analytics in Boston. Now the agency’s elevated profile “shows what an integral part Internet communication has become in our lives and how protective people feel about this issue.”

The new rules could produce tension between the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, which has historically been charged with protecting consumers’ privacy online. The order released Thursday gives the FCC new, overlapping authority to police Internet privacy issues.

Some question whether the FCC, which has not requested an increase to its legal budget for next year, has the capacity to manage and adjudicate one-off petitions. Last week, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, introduced a bill in the House, with 19 original co-sponsors, to limit the FCC’s authority and undo its new rules.

But Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, has expressed confidence in the agency’s ability to handle the unexpected. Asked at the FCC’s open meeting last month about the broad provisions of the general conduct rule and to clarify what its vague mandates meant, Wheeler conceded that the future is uncertain.

“We don’t really know. We don’t know where things go next,” he said. “We have created a playing field where there are known rules, and the FCC will sit there as a referee and will throw the flag.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 10:14 AM with the headline "FCC releases rules on net neutrality."