The adoption of the so-called net neutrality plan remained secret in the run-up to the final vote and afterward left as many questions as answers, according to Dave Duncan, president of the Iowa Communications Alliance. Duncan’s 150-member organization represents all rural telephone companies in Iowa.
Duncan said it's hard to say what the changes mean to his member Internet service providers.
“The devil is in the details of 332 pages. We’re hoping the FCC figures out the right balance of just the right amount of what I call 'light touch regulatory standards' and free commerce,” Duncan said.
It could take “weeks, months or even years” to figure out how the new regulations will affect customers and ISPs.
Thursday’s move leaves a number of questions unanswered.
“Is this going to require app and web developers to get FCC approval? Require app makers to be non-discriminatory between iPhones, Androids? What about the fairness of Google search results? Is FCC going to regulate the links some sites have to other links and advertisers? Is it going to make one newspaper carry or not carry information from another one? There’s a lot of questions that came out, that quite honestly, I don’t think are going to be answered after you read the 332 pages,” Duncan said.
Proponents of the regulations say they are designed to ensure open access to the Internet for all content providers and prevent “fast lanes” for some streaming services and not others.
The FCC made its ruling under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, placing the Web in the same regulatory category as telephones by classifying it as a public utility.
That means providers would be required to act “in the public interest” when providing a mobile connection, according to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Duncan said it was too early to know what it means for consumers.
“I’m not seeing a lot of complaints in Iowa of some of the alleged problems that caused the FCC to put these rules in in the first place,” he said. “Maybe this is a kind of a pre-emptive thing, but we haven’t seen a lot of these alleged horrors -- throttling or reducing speeds. Everyone wants to give the fastest speed to their services because it’s a competitive market. All our companies are working to improve the speeds, not throttle them back.”
New York-based Mediacom, a major Internet provider in Iowa, issued a statement opposing the changes.
“Under the leadership of Presidents Clinton and Bush, the federal government allowed the Internet to flourish largely free of regulation,” Mediacom said. “Unfortunately, two decades of intelligent and successful policy decisions are on the verge of being tossed aside by the Obama administration. Today, the FCC reversed course on years of unprecedented technological advancements by deciding to regulate the Internet under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.”
Mediacom spokeswoman Phyllis Peters said the regulations will bring “a great deal” of uncertainty to ISPs.
“Companies like Mediacom have invested billions of dollars to create and continually update our fiber networks, and if the government gets into micro-managing our business decisions, we see that as problematic,” she said.
There will be no immediate changes for Mediacom’s residential customers, Peters said.
“The Title II aspects may be tied up in court for a long time, but the part consumers have rallied for is exactly what we ... support anyway,” she said. “We support network neutrality, no slowdown of data packets, no throttling or obstructing of legal content our customers choose to download.”
Cedar Falls Utilities, another major ISP in the area, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Paul Klinghorn, director of the Regional Business Center and Entrepreneur Outreach at the University of Northern Iowa, said he had not yet studied the regulations, but he said, in general, he did not expect the changes to affect aspiring entrepreneurs who build businesses on the Web.
“From a small business perspective, the vast majority who use the Internet are consuming information as opposed to delivering information,” he said.
Equal access is a necessity, Klinghorn said.
“Anything that would allow them to continue to compete on a reasonably level playing field would work in their favor,” Klinghorn said. “Most businesses in the early stages are going to have limited resources and are not going to be able to compete by going to the service provider and (paying for) bandwidth preference the way an Amazon would. To that extent, it bodes very well for small business owners.”
Marc Reifenrath, CEO of Cedar Falls-based Web design firm Spinutech Inc., said the Internet was operating well without FCC intervention.
“I don’t want the government getting involved at all,” he said. “I’d rather they kept things the way they are. There’s probably some rules that would be OK, but most things government gets involved in don’t end up being better. I’d rather see it left as is or very, very little interjection.”
Reifenrath said he wasn’t aware of any changes the FCC regulations would have on his company.
“That’s not to say it won’t in future,” he said.
©2015 Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
