I know that the Internet isn’t a person, and it’s a little silly to congratulate it, but seriously, the US has been really lagging behind in the quality of the Internet.
Today, the FCC passed an act that will reclassify the Internet as a title 2 utility. It’s the same thing they did for telephone communications many years ago. There are some pros and cons to this, but in my humble opinion, the pros outweigh the cons.
I’m an optimistic person, so I’ll start with the pros. More competition! Right now, companies like Comcast and Time Warner have contracts with states and cities that give them legal monopolies over internet services in those areas. In all these areas, the service has been ridiculously bad. This reclassification will make those contracts unlawful. Other companies will come in and offer better service for a lower price, and so they too will have to improve their service.
Secondly, an ISP won’t be allowed to force a company to pay to have their data delivered, or pay extra for the same speed they’re already paying for due to having a bandwidth product. Anyone remember the Netflix vs Verizon fiasco last year? Netflix caved and started paying Verizon for the faster speeds, passing that cost down to the consumer. Yeah, that will be a thing of the past, because Verizon will not be allowed to limit the speeds on a delivery service you’re already paying for.
Third, this doesn’t just apply to land lines! It will also be applied to mobile, so there will be more options for low cost mobile internet, and, hopefully, the reintroduction of unlimited data plans.
Next, the fast lane is dead. If you heard nothing about this in 2014, then you must have been hiding under a rock, but basically it was a money making scheme on the part of the ISPs (Comcast and Time Warner primarily) to make extra money by charging companies to have their data delivered at faster speeds, where the smaller companies who can’t afford the higher costs would suffer at lower connection rates. There would be nothing the consumer could do to stop this either. You could have a gigabit connection, and if the company you were trying to get data from couldn’t afford the higher cost of delivery, you’d get a slow loading page.
Finally, depending on the wording of the act, companies should now be held accountable to use the subsidies they receive from the government to improve the service. There have been too many cases of companies receiving billions of dollars to expand the internet, without action on the part of the ISPs. Since it will be considered a public service, taxpayers can have some expectations on how it should work, and will finally have some recourse when it doesn’t work as it should. Of course this part won’t be immediate, but within the next 3-5 years, I imagine that the average speed of the internet will increase nationwide.
Now, as I said, this reclassification comes with a few cons, but the worst one is the added opportunity to tax it the same way that other utilities are taxed. Each person will be paying a little more taxes for the “maintenance” of the infrastructure. But oh well, with the added competition, I’m confident that the savings on the service will offset the added taxes.
Secondly, it will be harder to remain anonymous on the internet, but if you think you’re anonymous now… well… hahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, couldn’t resist. Let’s just say that the NSA and other federal organizations know well what recipes you’ve been checking and what porn you’ve been watching.
Anyway, this is one of the hurdles that is keeping me in Japan. I just can’t live and work in a place that has such terrible internet, especially when I’ve lived in a place that has amazing internet (Japan has the second highest average internet speeds in the world, behind South Korea). The transition won’t be easy, and there will be speed bumps, but I’m really happy that the US is actually moving in a positive direction on something for once.
So to reword my initial statement, Congratulations Americans! You’re about to get more choices, and most likely a lower internet bill.