Two Years Later, Broadband Providers Are Still Taking Advantage of An Internet Without Net Neutrality Protections

This December 2019 marks the two-year anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order and the agency’s net neutrality consumer protections. Even though 86 percent of Americans support net neutrality and opposed the reversal, two years ago the FCC chose to side with the major broadband providers over consumers regarding who controls access to internet content, and consumers are experiencing the grave effects of that choice. Public Knowledge has detailed some of the ways broadband providers have been quietly taking advantage of an internet without net neutrality protections and where the FCC has no legal authority to police harmful conduct by broadband providers. The truth is, without net neutrality protections, the internet is slowly changing to favor the decisions of major broadband providers over consumers, and broadband providers continue to take advantage:

• Consumers’ real-time location data originating from cell phone providers -- including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint -- is being sold to bounty hunters and others. Domestic abusers have used the easy availability of this geolocation data to stalk current and former partners. This data is also being resold on the black market. According to these wireless companies, this use of data goes against the company’s policies, but when net neutrality rules were repealed, so too was the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband privacy.
• Researchers from Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst found that almost all wireless carriers pervasively slow down internet speed for selected video streaming services. From early 2018 to early 2019, AT&T throttled Netflix 70% of the time as well as YouTube 74% of the time, but not Amazon Prime Video. T-Mobile throttled Amazon Prime Video in about 51% of the tests, but did not throttle Skype or Vimeo. While U.S. wireless carriers have long said they may slow video traffic on their networks to avoid congestion, one of the study’s authors, David Choffnes, explained that these carriers are throttling content “all the time, 24/7, and it’s not based on networks being overloaded.” No throttling internet traffic is a core net neutrality principle.  
• Broadband provider Cox Communications is offering a “fast lane” for gamers who pay $15 more per month. If net neutrality protections existed, broadband providers cannot set up “fast lanes”—also known as “paid prioritization”—to force users to pay more for prioritized access to the internet. 
• Frontier Communications is charging its customers a $10 monthly modem rental fee even if they already own their modems. If users buy their own modem to avoid such fees, the ISP will still charge them as if they are renting one. The FCC used to have broadband oversight authority to address this problematic behavior, but without such authority, the FCC has told Congress that this is now the FTC’s problem to deal with.