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Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Net neutrality back, more or less, after TRUMP's appointees killed it DEAD! (We may need to wait on rule-making procedural steps, but the will and action are there.)

ArsTechnia, days ago, the item beginning -

California can keep enforcing its state net neutrality law after the Federal Communications Commission implements its own rules. The FCC could preempt future state laws if they go far beyond the national standard but said that states can "experiment" with different regulations for interconnection payments and zero-rating.

The FCC scheduled an April 25 vote on Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal to restore net neutrality rules similar to the ones introduced during the Obama era and repealed under former President Trump. The FCC yesterday released the text of the pending order, which could still be changed but isn't likely to get any major overhaul.

State-level enforcement of net neutrality rules can benefit consumers, the FCC said. The order said that "state enforcement generally supports our regulatory efforts by dedicating additional resources to monitoring and enforcement, especially at the local level, and thereby ensuring greater compliance with our requirements."

California stepped in to regulate broadband providers after then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a vote to repeal the federal rules. California beat ISPs in court, ensuring that it could enforce the state law even though Pai's FCC attempted to preempt all state net neutrality rules.

The California law mostly mirrored the FCC's repealed rules by prohibiting paid prioritization and blocking or throttling of lawful traffic, on both fixed and mobile networks. California went further than the FCC in regulating zero-rating by imposing a ban on paid data cap exemptions.

That means ISPs operating in California can't exempt Internet traffic from customers' data usage allowances in exchange for payment from a third party. In response to the state law, AT&T stopped exempting HBO Max from its mobile data caps and stopped its "sponsored data" program in which it charged other companies for similar exemptions from AT&T's data caps.

FCC: No reason to preempt California

In the order scheduled for an April 25 vote, the FCC said the California law "appears largely to mirror or parallel our federal rules. Thus we see no reason at this time to preempt it."

That doesn't mean the rules are exactly the same. Instead of banning certain types of zero-rating entirely, the FCC will judge on a case-by-case basis whether any specific zero-rating program harms consumers and conflicts with the goal of preserving an open Internet. The FCC said it will evaluate sponsored-data "programs based on a totality of the circumstances, including potential benefits."

The Ars report goes into further detail. Interested readers are urged to follow the link. Ajit Pai was an industry tool, and likely still is. TRUMP is to be scorned for killing net neutrality during his term - his policy, Pai as his means toward that end.

Both Pai and TRUMP gone is better than it was. Obama - Biden did things right. After the intervening hands on the levers; Biden - Harris have to mop up.

There's a lesson about letting wrong hands on the levers. 

Go figure.

______________UPDATE______________

Pai has a Wikipedia page. Readers should check it out. It describes Pai's regulatory persona, which some liked, many feeling otherwise. It is worth reading.

Axios reported Apr. 2021, that after resigning from FCC:

[Pai] joined private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners as a partner.

Why it matters: Pai, who was an FCC commissioner before former President Trump picked him as chair, is best known for telecom deregulation efforts, including the repeal of net neutrality rules. Searchlight has several portfolio companies in the media and telecom space, including Univision, Uniti and Ziply Fiber.

Still a tool.