But the nightmare of widespread internet outages shutting down an already devastated economy has not come to pass.
That’s partly due to the basic design of the internet, which originated a half-century ago as a Pentagon-backed effort to devise a communications network robust enough to bypass massive obstacles — including, famously, nuclear war. But keeping the global network humming these days also depends upon the decision of a host of for-profit and noncommercial entities.
Many of these companies credit proactive investment decisions that now help keep Americans connected. AT&T, for instance, is quick to cite its investment in tools that allow it to dynamically adjust traffic patterns and use artificial intelligence to adjust the use of cell sites.
Since the late 1990s, key differences have emerged in the American and European approaches to internet oversight. The U.S. favored so-called infrastructure-based competition, pitting similar communications providers against one another and requiring new market players to build their own networks. Europe instead focused on service-based competition, in which new internet providers are allowed to use the same data pipelines that more-established competitors have already created. These differences influenced companies’ willingness to invest, Republicans have argued, and thus affected how prepared industry was for today’s pandemic.
“I know the U.S. networks appear to be doing really, really well,” said Scott Mair, AT&T’s president of technology and operations. “I chalk that up to a couple of things. It’s a good environment for companies like AT&T to invest in.“
Redl, the former Trump administration official, said that’s something to keep in mind during the next regulation fight.
“If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this in terms of broadband networks, it’s that we should be not trying to regulate harder but taking a page out of the playbook here and say, ‘OK, how do we continue to incentive these guys to build out?’” Redl said. “How do we align the incentives to continue having facilities-based competition through private sector investment?”
But Democrats, including Obama-era FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a recent essay, say the pandemic still points the need for more federal action to secure and expand the blessings of internet service. Those include a more aggressive effort to expand broadband service to tens of millions of underserved Americans — a goal many Republicans have also embraced, especially in rural communities.
„I guess one can observe that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste if it gives advocates a new opportunity to flog long-established positions, regardless of their validity,“ Wheeler told POLITICO regarding Republicans’ recent victory lap, saying many U.S. internet successes date to policies enacted under the previous Democratic administration and before. He also noted that many European consumers seem to pay much less for higher internet speeds than Americans do.
A more starkly partisan U.S. fight concerns whether to classify broadband as a „common carrier“ telecommunications service, akin to an old-fashioned telephone network, which comes with heavier regulatory powers. FCC Republicans gave up a lot of the commission’s direct authority over broadband in 2017 when they repealed the Obama-era net neutrality regulations. That ended broadband’s regulation as a common carrier.
Now, left-leaning advocacy groups say, the FCC’s regulators have only limited power to crack down on ISPs or ensure they abide by potential commission demands, such as lifting data caps or compelling connectivity, if the internet were to begin to sputter.
“Their options are severely limited,” Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld warned during a webinar last month. “There’s just somewhat limited authority to do what needs to be done.”
And it’s not certain how much the Federal Trade Commission would help, even though it assumed much authority over policing broadband following the FCC’s net neutrality repeal. The FTC, which tends to focus on enforcement, has mainly dealt with issues like fighting coronavirus scams but has taken a backseat to the FCC on overseeing the internet connections themselves.
Michael Copps, a former Democratic FCC commissioner, has said the voluntary ISP commitments Pai secured are not enforceable given diminished FCC authority. Gigi Sohn, a former Wheeler adviser at the commission, also lamented in an op-ed that the FCC is now „powerless“ over broadband — which means Pai was „forced to beg“ for the providers’ good behavior.
Even if the internet is functioning fine for now, U.S. policy could still whipsaw in a more regulatory direction after November if Democrats take the White House. But GOP lawmakers are glad to join the victory lap for now.
“America, you’re seeing with our lighter touch regulation, is very much better during this enormous usage of the internet than our European counterparts that have a much heftier government interference in their networks,” House Energy and Commerce ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told reporters on a recent call.
Source: politico.com
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