The subtext of the FCC's Net Neutrality repeal move is states rights

The Internet is alive and well for now. It is also wide awake to see the FCC repeal rules crafted and adopted in 2015, to reclassify ISPs as telecommunications services, and impose net neutrality rules codified as regulations. The current FCC chair, Ajit Pai, maintains that this action to repeal net neutrality won't break the internet and that the rules will be set as they were before 2015. He also points out that the new rule would require disclosure by the ISPs that if they make any changes to their network management practices, that they must make public disclosure of those changes.


Tech Dirt and a few others have done a very good job of fact checking Ajit Pai's claims. Sorry Mr. Pai, investment did not fall during those two years of formal net neutrality rules. And no, your latest order goes far, far beyond what the rules were before 2015.


In all of the fury that has erupted over the FCC vote to repeal the previous net neutrality rules, which by all accounts were working and working well, few have been willing to state the obvious: the FCC simply lacks authority to reclassify the ISPs as information services. I've said as much in my recent article, "How to re-frame the Net Neutrality debate".


But there is another, not quite so obvious subtext. This is about states rights, and plays right into the hands of Republicans. See all the Attorney Generals' preparing to sue the FCC over this rule making? Notice that all of them are saying that the public comments were tainted with fake comments? Notice also that (as far as I can tell), none of them are raising the issue that FCC authority to reclassify the ISPs as information services is non-existent?


Even at the Intercept, they have made the point that cities and states are in the best position to deal with the net neutrality issue, at the local level. As a side note, it may not be readily apparent, but it appears to me that everything the Trump Administration is doing on domestic policy, and just about every major policy proposal before Congress has the same subtext: to give more authority back to the states. Here is what they have to say at The Intercept in their article, Killing Net Neutrality has brought on a new call for public broadband:

The political peril in pursuing public broadband, noted David Segal, head of Demand Progress, which advocates for an open internet, comes with the potential of giving unwarranted credibility to the arguments made by FCC Chair Ajit Pai, that states, cities, and the Federal Trade Commission are best poised to regulated the situation. That’s not at all the case, Segal argued, and public broadband is a good thing in itself, but shouldn’t be seen as a substitute for net neutrality.

Net neutrality is a national issue. Fiber runs across our country, through multiple jurisdictions, with multiple regulatory frameworks to thread through. But it works. It all works because it's worth the money to do it and to do it right even with the current regulatory regime. The problem for the monopolists is that the power they have isn't enough.


The Intercept also points out in the same article that a socialist from Seattle is raising the call for public broadband in her city. It would be great to see a large city like Seattle build and run a public broadband system. That would set a trend and would show the incumbent ISPs that they run a very real, possibly fatal risk of losing entire cities to the public option, community broadband.


The local jurisdictions like cities and counties are the low hanging fruit of change. They are smaller and easier to manage. They talk to each other to act in unison when necessary. Besides, a famous politician once said that real change always comes from the bottom up. Never top down.


Net neutrality transcends political parties with 83% of those who have been polled on net neutrality in favor of the current rules. That means at the local level, where private regulation of broadband tends to prevail, management by scarcity and profit motive, are felt the most. It is at the local level where we can find the most animosity towards private ISPs.


If Ajit Pai wants to make this a states rights issue, and by all appearances, he does, guess what? They really get it in Colorado where more than 90 local municipalities (at last count) have opted to assert local control over their authority to let the city or county build a public option for internet access. And the numbers there keep growing every year. Nationwide, more than 500 cities have built public broadband systems because the big telecom companies refused to build out for them or increase capacity, while increasing fees for service.


So let's call the Trump administration on their bluff. More and more cities are realizing now that they need to take matters into their own hands and build out the infrastructure they need to attract businesses and jobs. Even small towns and cities have seen their property values rise as they build their own systems. Internet access is the great equalizer between large and small towns.


Like rivers, roads, rail and air, the internet is public infrastructure that drives commerce. When the federal government has been overrun by private interests at the expense of the public good, it is up to towns, cities and counties to build the networks that private internet access providers refuse to build.