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Did the FCC Just Vote To Save The Internet Or Kill It?

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The Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) has just reclassified Internet service providers as “telecommunications service” providers to be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

Sounds pretty boring, right?

Then why are there so many headlines popping up every few seconds proclaiming that the agency has either saved or killed the Internet?

The impassioned outcry has been provoked by everyone from comedian John Oliver, who painted the issue as a battle between monopolistic Internet service providers and disenfranchised consumers, to Fox News, which immediately classified the move as another Obama “power grab.”

At the root of this is a longstanding battle over net neutrality, which, in theory, means that Internet service should be made available equally to all customers and service providers. As I wrote earlier this month, no one can argue the ideal of a free and open Internet. It feels like it should be an inalienable right. But it is not.

And this is where the current volley of polarized and reductive headlines can be misleading. For good reason, most commentators on this issue have latched on to the notion of Internet “fast lanes” whereby companies with large broadband requirements – like Netflix and Amazon – are able to pay for faster access to their customers.

Generally speaking, people don’t like this idea. And why would they? The idea of your cable company – the same guys who send you a 5-page bill loaded with hard-to-decipher service fees and complicated billing structures – having the power to throttle the volume of information passing through the web is not a positive image.

But consider the alternative. Under the new Title II FCC classification, Internet Service Providers will be regulated as a public utility, meaning that they have to deliver their services in the “public interest.” That’s tantamount to your electric or gas utility running the Internet.

And that’s just the consumer perspective. What about the business side of the equation? Would today’s technology companies continue to invest billions of dollars to innovate new Internet services if the upside for them is utility-like profit margins?

Will Google and SpaceX continue with their plan to invest $1 billion to deliver Internet access via low orbit satellites? That project, by the way, while clearly having a for-profit mission, is also designed to bring Internet access to remote areas of the world – including developing and emerging markets that do not currently have the landline infrastructure to provide Internet access. Would a government-regulated utility bother to point Internet-powered satellites into remote parts of the Congo? Probably not. But companies with the blinding ambition of Google, SpaceX and many others have that kind of conquer-the-world mentality as part of their mission statements.

Odds are that the new FCC rules will not turn the Internet into a utopian dream of free, public access nor will they relegate new innovation to the back-burner. The rules are likely to face several court battles before the see the light of day, and, even if they do get implemented, history has shown us that no amount of regulation can truly stifle innovation. But this step is noteworthy for its philosophical stance on the Internet as a utility. It will be up to tech innovators to keep challenging the boundaries of that definition to create the kinds of breakthroughs that make us care about Internet access in the first place.