Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to end network neutrality protections. At the time, lobbyists for monopoly-model incumbents, like Comcast and AT&T, fell all over themselves promising that regulated or not, they would abide by open Internet principles.
That promise wasn’t kept, according to a blog post by Public Knowledge’s Lindsay Stern (h/t to the Baller list for the pointer)…
Researchers from Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst found that almost all wireless carriers pervasively slow down internet speed for selected video streaming services. From early 2018 to early 2019, AT&T throttled Netflix 70% of the time as well as YouTube 74% of the time, but not Amazon Prime Video. T-Mobile throttled Amazon Prime Video in about 51% of the tests, but did not throttle Skype or Vimeo. While U.S. wireless carriers have long said they may slow video traffic on their networks to avoid congestion, one of the study’s authors, David Choffnes, explained that these carriers are throttling content “all the time, 24/7, and it’s not based on networks being overloaded.” No throttling internet traffic is a core net neutrality principle.
Broadband provider Cox Communications is offering a “fast lane” for gamers who pay $15 more per month.” If net neutrality protections existed, broadband providers cannot set up “fast lanes”—also known as “paid prioritization”—to force users to pay more for prioritized access to the internet.
The FCC’s abandonment its broadband beat also means that there’s no cop dedicated to policing other bad conduct. Stern points to Frontier’s $10 monthly modem fee, which it charges whether or not a subscriber uses its equipment. It’s not the first time Frontier has been called out for arbitrarily tacking fees onto customer bills.
The FCC’s 2017 decision appears likely to stand for the next few years, but it’s not necessarily the last word. The federal appeals court in the District of Columbia upheld it, but also opened the door to state laws, such as we have in California, that would ride right over the top of it.