Net Neutrality Will be Reversed. It’s pretty obvious that the FCC’s current net neutrality rules will be reversed in short order in the new year. We already have Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly strongly on the record opposing the FCC’s prior actions. This could be done in two ways. First could be a direct reversal of the net neutrality ruling. But another tactic might be to reverse Title II regulation but allow the net neutrality principles to stay in place – basically to acknowledge the net neutrality principles that the public clearly likes but to remove the ability to enforce those rules.
Interestingly, net neutrality hasn’t had much direct impact on small carriers since none of them have the market power to violate it. The one impact of this reversal for small carriers is that it will unfetter Comcast, Charter, Verizon and AT&T from most regulations and will give them greater market power and the ability to more aggressively squash smaller competitors.
One benefit of net neutrality was that it gave the general public some comfort that they couldn’t be preyed upon by large ISPs. So small carriers might want to periodically remind your customers that you will still be adhering to the principles of net neutrality even though this might not still be a formal requirement.
Reversal of New Privacy Rules. It’s also clear that the FCC is going to reverse most or all of the new privacy rules. These rules stopped ISPs from using customer data without explicit permission. There were parts of these rule that small carriers didn’t like. But for the most part small ISPs don’t use customer data for marketing purposes and don’t sell customer data to marketers. I think small carriers should periodically remind your customers that you don’t misuse or sell their data, but that your big competitors do.
Lifeline Changes. I think it’s likely that the new FCC will change the data lifeline program that pays $9.25 per month towards the data bill for qualifying families. At a minimum they might curtail this for cellular data plans, but there is even the possibility that they will eliminate it.
There is also talk of going back to a numbers-based method to fund the Universal Service Fund. This would impose a tax of around $1 on every telephone number. This is supported by the big telcos since they no longer control the majority of telephone numbers, but even more so because this would remove USF assessments on special access circuits.
A New Telecom Act. I expect Congress to enact a new telecom act. There are certainly parts of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that are way out of date. That Act concentrated on copper telco networks and on traditional large cable line-ups and we need to now acknowledge that copper telco networks are quickly disappearing and that the public wants non-traditional cable packages.
But I also expect that any new act is going to drastically change the role of the FCC. My guess is that Congress wants to throttle the FCC’s power so that the agency won’t have much power if there is another change in administration. There have been threats from Congressmen in the past year to abolish the FCC altogether, but I think once they look at all of the things the agency does that cooler heads will prevail. But we might be seeing permanently reduced federal regulatory oversight of the industry.
Resurgence of State Regulation. If the FCC delivers on the stated goal of the new administration to whack FCC regulations, I expect that some state regulators will step in to fill the regulatory gap. After all, regulators like to regulate! It would not be surprising to see the most active state regulatory commissions like California, New York, Texas and Illinois tackle topics that the FCC might drop. And that would undoubtedly mean a string of states-rights lawsuits.