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| NE Georgia 2018 |
Russell Brandon writes for The Verge that the Democrats’
double-header win in Georgia’s Senate runoff may “save network neutrality”.
Without control of the Senate, Biden would have to appoint
moderate Democrats to the FCC, and they won’t be in a hurry to reverse Pai’s
orders.
Biden hasn’t commented on net neutrality, but he does
want to do away with Section 230, but probably does not understand it fully.
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| Occoquan creek VA |
Tony Romm reports in the Washington Post that $7 billion in the stimulus package (which Trump is
waffling on) would go to lower-income Americans to help them pay high-speed Internet
bills for virtual learning and other essential uses.
You would
wonder if they need cable TV packages, though.
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| model railroad and wind energy, 2015 |
The Brookings Institute has a primer on what to expect
from the Biden administration of network neutrality and the digital divide,
link.
The FCC, under Biden, would be likely to repeal the
2018 order and go back to the 2015 order under Obama.
However a Biden administration is considered likely to
follow Pai’s work on the Digital Divide in rural areas, particularly because of
the virtual learning situation.
Brookings believes that Biden will leave the Section
230 issue to Congress.
However Bloomberg Law has a more detailed discussion. There is some issue with getting a 3-2
Democratic majority on the FCC board (with Senate confirmation, which might
become contentious if the Senate is still Republican after the Georgia
runoiff).
There are also hurdles in reclassifying broadband as a
title II information service instead of Title I (as was done under Pai).
In practice, most users have not noticed changes under Pai, but there have been issues (like problems with some emergency services).
Ron Placone's video embedded above also discusses 230, which is taken up on my main blog. However Biden's favorable intentions on network neutrality (according to convention wisdom) might offset some of his hostility to Section 230.
Comcast will be limiting consumers to 1.2TB a month starting
in 2021, which it says is “fair”.
But as long as a lot of people “work from home”, well,
the rest of the family will sacrifice some games and movies, won’t it.
Maybe it gets better when the vaccines come – but then
people have to go back to real work.
AOL provided a link to this article about a home wifi
signal booster, which is supposed to be a consumer “weapon” against ISP’s continually
raising charges for high-speed broadband.
The article gives a story of a family not able to set
up chats online during the pandemic, as speeds had degraded without a major and
expensive upgrade.
In areas where there are not enough providers for
competition, this sounds like a serious consumer problem similar to neutrality.
Limited Internet access is still a problem for virtual
learning in some parts of North Carolina, ranging from Beaufort County
(coastal, Washington NC) to Buncombe County (Asheville, in the mountains).
Providers find providing efficient service unprofitable. One family, a teenager moved to a family in
another town to have more access. In
another, the kids have to stay outside in the cold (in the mountains) to get a
good enough signal.
Casey Morris writes for the Carolina Public Press,
here.
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports that “Most Americans have no real choice in Internet providers” in this story Aug. 12, link.
The story refers to an earlier booklet PDF “Profiles
of Monopoly: Big Cable and Television”.
Gigi Sohn (who was quite active 20 years ago opposing “don’t
ask don’t tell” for the military) has an article in The Verge “The FCC should
let itself do more to keep Americans connected during the pandemic”
Ajit Pai did beg providers to pledge to “keep
Americans connected”, informally. But
this wasn’t enough. I do wonder if
private fundraisers are in order?
Sohn has a twitter thread showing the irony of the
loss of net neutrality when Congress considers rolling back the protections of
platforms from Section 230.
