In a move that should surprise nobody, the FCC today voted 2-1 along pure party lines to begin dismantling the agency's net neutrality rules, passed only two years ago. The move to kill the rules comes despite the fact that the vast majority of people leaving comments on the proceeding at the FCC website support the rules, as they did when they were originally created. And while FCC boss Ajit Pai has stated that he'll carefully weigh all input into the proceeding, the boss has made it extremely clear he has one goal: removing any meaningful oversight of some of the least competitive companies in American industry.
The rules, which prevent industry giants like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from using the lack of broadband competition to harm competitors, aren't dead yet: today's vote only begins the process of dismantling the rules ahead of a final vote later this year.
"The Federal Communications Commission today took the first step toward restoring Internet freedom and promoting infrastructure investment, innovation, and choice by proposing to end utility-style regulation of broadband Internet access service," the FCC said in a statement, ignoring a decade of factual analysis disproving every one of those claims.
What happens next? Well, the FCC's website will be re-opened to public comment, allowing you to share your thoughts with the FCC. And yes it does matter: should Pai bring things to a final vote, he'll inevitably be sued by impacted competitors and consumers, and will have to prove to a court that such a severe reversal of policy is warranted so soon after the rules' creation and the FCC's appeals court victory just last year.
That won't be easy, and a massive groundswell of support can go a long way in aiding the argument that Pai isn't being guided by the public interest.
It's also entirely possible that Pai, a former Verizon lawyer well aware of the looming legal challenges, is engaged in a bit of a head fake. Pai may be threatening to kill net neutrality to open the door to a new GOP net neutrality "compromise" bill. One that's already being sold by ISP-funded think tanks as a solution to years of bickering on this subject, but which will inevitably be written by Comcast, AT&T and Verizon lawyers to ensure it's so filled with loopholes as to be effectively toothless. It would, however, override the existing and any future FCC rules.
The short version: net neutrality opponents will see today as a victory, but the reality is that the battle for a healthy, open internet is far from over. Support for the rules has broad, bipartisan support, and if Pai and friends want to kill them, they're going to have to fight tooth and nail against the will of the public, the courts, and common sense to do it.