The Internet is Essential Infrastructure. We Should Govern It Accordingly.

You’d be hard-pressed to find many people who don’t intuitively consider the internet essential infrastructure, and their broadband service an essential utility. The last time Congress comprehensively addressed how we should govern the communications landscape was the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Thirty years ago, we went on the internet. Now, we live there. Ninety percent of American adults use the internet daily. Schools, health care providers, public benefits, job applications, and a good share of our relationships now run on broadband. Yet as Scott Jordan, the Federal Communications Commission's former chief technologist, wrote the Telecommunications Act of 1996 "barely covers the communications services that Americans actually use." Broadband customers enjoy none of the common carrier protections that once applied to the landline telephone service high-speed internet replaced. Mobile data sits largely outside the statute's reach. We need a new law that governs communications as we use them now, not as they existed when America Online told us, “You’ve got mail.” While technology has changed, many of the issues the Telecom Act was intended to address have not. Profound questions about universal service, competition, affordability, nondiscrimination, interconnection, privacy, and the responsible stewardship of public resources still need to be answered. We have spent decades stretching old legal categories to fit new facts. We need a new compact.