January 2018

The Federal Communications Commission has finally released the language of its controversial Restoring Internet Freedom order, which the Republican majority approved Dec 14 against visceral opposition from Democrats--edits to the item continued through this week. Here are some key passages of the final language of a decision that Internet services have celebrated, Democratic members of Congress are trying to overturn, and activists say spells the end of an open internet as we know it.

The Federal Communications Commission rejected calls to delay ending network neutrality rules over a flawed public comment system, saying it had not relied on thousands of identical or suspicious submissions in its decision making. “We reject calls to delay adoption of this Order out of concerns that certain non-substantive comments (on which the Commission did not rely) may have been submitted under multiple different names or allegedly ‘fake’ names,” the commission said in its final order released late on Jan 4.

Municipal broadband seems like the savior of the open internet. Except the challenges its rollout face are so legion that I am deeply unconvinced muni broadband is the solution to the repeal of net neutrality.