The US telecommunications regulator announced after years of debate new rules for the processing of data on the Web.
Le Monde | • Apart updates the | By
This is the end of a marathon after years of intense debate and lobbying, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the regulator of US communications, took a firm decision, Thursday 26 February, on the issue of net neutrality in the United UNite.
The five commissioners who direct the FCC considered by three votes against two that US Internet should now be considered a “public good” just as the telephone network, which gives . to the Commission the authority to enforce net neutrality in the US
The FCC also endorsed a document of more than three hundred pages – of which only the very substance has been made to date public – that will guide its work in this direction. The Commission may now prohibit Internet service providers to arbitrarily block legal content, to slow down or speed up the flow of data without justification or prioritize certain content passing through their network fee.
This decision is a true victory for advocates of neutrality, although some details still worry the strongest advocates of this principle. “This is a very important day for the Internet and its users. FCC acquires real rules ensuring Net neutrality, “ welcomed Erik Stallman, the director of the Open Internet Project, an organizations that have lobbied for the decision by the FCC.
Telecommunications operators were strongly opposed to the text. In a statement written in a typeface imitating the typewriter, the US telecommunications giant Verizon regretted that “the FCC [it] approved new rules pushed by President Obama, which require Internet rules dating from the time of the steam engine and the telegraph [the law on which the FCC relies to make its rules in fact dates from the 1930s] “.
What is Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality is that all the data are processed in the same way on the network, regardless of purpose or starting point. Under this principle, the ISPs – including Orange and SFR in France, Verizon or AT & T in the US – should carry the same conditions data to their customers, they come from the website established for a Web giant like Google or the site of a small sports association
Read:. Net neutrality, what it is
Without the application of net neutrality, the Internet service providers, who are already paying their connection to their customers, could charge content providers (web sites, video sites …) to use their “pipes”. And book the best payers a “fast track” on their infrastructure. Advocates of net neutrality fear that this will lead to a two-tiered Internet and stifle innovation.
Without net neutrality, they say, impossible for small start- up to launch new high-performance services to compete with the established players. For consumers, this could result in much faster than other websites, erratic lockups certain websites or a different billing based on the services and websites that the user visits.
already tested scenario, the United States, for Netflix subscribers who are also customers of the ISP Comcast. The connection speed of the famous video site with a Comcast subscription has drastically declined until the company agrees to get out the checkbook to pay for a better connection.
Meanwhile, the Opponents of net neutrality, mainly large telecommunications companies fear that tougher regulation of their sector dries investments in infrastructure needed to support the growing use of the Internet. In the United States, this fear is coupled with the usual distrust of some of the Republicans against any form of “government interference” in the private sector. “Net neutrality is a” Obamacare “of the Internet. Internet should not operate at the speed of government, “ was launched in November Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
” A problem that does not exist “
At the hearing FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Republican said the measures on which was pronounced the FCC were “not the solution to a problem. [They are] the problem. [They] impose intrusive government regulations that do not solve a problem that does not exist “.
The President of the Commission, Tom Wheeler, replied a few minutes later:
“Internet is the ultimate vector freedom of expression. Internet is simply too important to allow the ISPs to be the ones who set the rules. It described the proposal as “a secret plan to regulate the Internet.” This is absurd, it is no more a plan to regulate the Internet that the First Amendment is a plan to regulate freedom of expression! “
In this highly technical but also very political debate that the FCC had decided.
This has had several twists. The FCC defined a first set of rules partially protecting net neutrality in 2010, but these were canceled by the court, on application by an Internet access provider, in early 2014. In April, the new plan the FCC of the internet, which has leaked in the press, is greeted by very fresh neutrality advocates: Commission wanted then allow “fast lanes” reserved for some services that would fulfill a toll among providers access. Intolerable from the point of view of neutrality.
Intense Lobbying
Therefore, lobbying on this issue, already intense, took a different scale. The telecommunications industry has considerable firepower in Washington. She however, it faces the powerful lobby of the giants of the Net, which does not want to pay more than they already do for “tips” of the Internet, and therefore advocates of neutrality.
These traditional lobbyists funded by Silicon Valley also found allies. Many smaller sites, sometimes unexpected, took part in several protests online, the most important was the Internet Slowdown Day (“the Internet slowdown of the day”).
Read: In the United States, unexpected supporters of net neutrality
Netflix, Reddit, Dropbox, Vimeo, Etsy … Hundreds of US sites, totaling hundreds of millions of visitors showed a small load symbol: a sign that people are likely to see more often in a non-neutral Internet, where some data is deliberately slow. According to the website Battle for the Net, who coordinated the event, it resulted in the shipment of more than two million emails to Congress.
Four million emails
Even more significant was the craze of Internet users for the question. The FCC had asked them to contribute to the discussion by submitting their opinions. Result: four million messages were sent to the FCC, an absolute record, most in favor of stricter rules to protect the neutrality
This influx of comments is no stranger to the call from. comedian John Oliver, also featured presenter of the satirical show “Last Week Tonight” broadcast on the HBO cable network. In April, he had pitched a hilarious indictment in favor of net neutrality, which ended with a solemn appeal to “all commentators” the Internet to rush on the FCC site to defend this position.
As a result, the video has been viewed more than eight million times and the influx of comments interrupted the operation of the FCC site.
“This is proof that the Internet has changed what is possible or not in a democracy. We used new online tools that allowed users to make their voices heard to Washington “ says Evan Greer, Director of Campaigns Fight for the Future, one of the most active associations for neutrality. He says have made available a tool that allowed users to directly call the members of the FCC bypassing the switchboard, arousing in his fifty-five thousand calls a month. “It gave political courage to the FCC,” for its part considers Mark Stanley, director of operations of Demand Progress, another non-governmental organization extremely committed to the fight for neutrality.
“The telecom lobbies were far more numerous, but we had something they did not: popular support. “
This mobilization she weighed in the publication in November, Barack Obama, in a video in which he encourages the FCC, on which he has no power to embrace net neutrality? The commitment of the US president has in any case been a key moment in a debate that is far from complete.
Congress in Republican majority and in which the Democrats lost at Senate, blocking power since the November midterm elections, could indeed pass a law to cancel the FCC decision, even though the Republican leader on the issue currently ruled out by law only supported his camp . In addition, several telecom giants have already announced plans to attack the FCC decision in court.
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