The neutrality of the Net in the suspension in Washington – The Echoes

The days of Net neutrality are numbered in the United States. President Donald Trump has appointed Monday a new manager to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the regulator of u.s. telecom. Ajit Pai replaces Tom Wheeler, who had been appointed in November 2013 by Barack Obama. The man knows the house : he was a member of the quorum of the FCC since 2012. It is also accustomed to political offices in Washington : he has worked for many years in the ministry of Justice, under the various Bush administrations.

sensitivity republican, this former lawyer, who worked for the giant of the mobile Verizon in 2000, has always argued for a less interventionist regulator in the industry. It has never ceased to mark his opposition to Net neutrality, and in particular to the rules adopted by the FCC. In 2015, the regulator american had erected the access to the Net in basic and universal human right. No question of letting the “telcos’ and cable operators set the rules, and take the risk to see the emergence of an Internet that more speed, more efficient for content providers willing to pay the price.

The adopted law on the subject two years ago should logically be called into question by the new director. “It is time to repeal the rules that inhibit investment, innovation and job creation in the sector “, hammered Ajit Pai in December, at a conference organized by a think tank in Washington.

The repeal, if it occurs, however, will not a small matter. Tom Wheeler, the former head of the FCC, pointed out, there are a few days during a farewell speech, that ” many things had changed in just two years “, and that it would be ” complicated “, if only from an administrative point of view, to question the principles of a ” free Internet “. The Congress mostly republican should, however, put the pressure to return as quickly as possible on the concept of Net neutrality.

The return of a lobby

With the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House and Ajit Pai to the FCC, the telecom operators and the “cable” who have applauded this appointment, make their grand return to Washington after having suffered for eight years the competition in the lobby of the Silicon Valley, close to the democrats. Remains to be seen whether the positioning pro-business and less interventionist approach of the new administration will allow the industry to have truly hands-free. Donald Trump has not hidden, during the campaign, his hostility to the completion of large deals, such as the rapprochement between the operator ATT and the media group Time Warner (owner of CNN). The merger of the year 2016 also remains in suspension.

Roman Gueugneau, Les Echos