Net neutrality - USA vs Europe

Coronavirus Crisis Vindicates the FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Rollback is the title of a Wall Street Journal op-ed. The subtitle is: In Europe, meanwhile, heavy-handed regulation is forcing internet providers to throttle video speeds.

The article is behind a paywall. The title and subtitle summarize it nicely. The following excerpts tell more.

The widespread imposition of stay-at-home orders has underscored the critical role that access to the internet plays in modern society. In Europe, networks have struggled to meet bandwidth demand. U.S. networks have faced fewer problems adjusting to the increase in demand. The European Union has embraced a heavy-handed regulatory scheme designed to allocate access to the existing network, while the U.S. has emphasized private investment to expand network capacity.

European regulators were guided by the legal system developed to govern traditional telephone service largely built with taxpayer funds.  Rather than fold the internet into an outdated legal regime developed for a different era, the American vision concentrates on encouraging telephone and cable companies to compete by investing to increase their bandwidth. The only major deviation from this pattern occurred in 2015, when the Federal Communications Commission adopted a “net neutrality” rule applying legacy telephone regulation to the internet for the first time. The agency returned to its longstanding investment-oriented policy in 2018.

The U.S. and EU have seen dramatically different investment and utilization. Between 2010 and 2016, American providers invested on average annually 2.35 times as much per household as their European counterparts. This allowed the average U.S. household to consume more than three times as much data as the average European household in 2017, according to Cisco. [End].

The article doesn't say what net neutrality is. Wikipedia and Investopedia say more.

'All rise' for Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas regrets ruling that Ajit Pai used to kill net neutrality

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas now says he was wrong on the Brand X case that helped the FCC deregulate broadband. Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion on Brand X in 2005.

I am far from qualified to opine on the legal issues and technicalities, but I honor Judge Thomas for what he did. Also, it is clear the matter bears significantly on the meaning of terms and the nature of government. In the Brand X case the Supreme Court faced the question of whether broadband was classified as an information service or telecommunications. The Court's decision didn't choose one and exclude the other, but allowed both.

A brief search for examples of information service gave cable modem and text messaging.  Telecommunication includes communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. For anybody interested Wikipedia has pages on the FCC and net neutrality in the USA.

The Brand X case has allowed the FCC to subsequently change its classification decision multiple times. The FCC is an independent agency of the United States government. This means that "while constitutionally managed by the executive branch, are independent of presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited" (Wikipedia). Judge Thomas regrets that the precedent of Brand X granted too much power to an independent agency and too little power to judges to decide how the law should be interpreted for a particular court case.

"Thomas explained his new position over 11 pages, but it boils down to one fact: he now believes that Brand X disrupted the government's checks-and-balances system by preventing courts from blocking federal-agency decisions that conflict with US law. Judges, not officials at government agencies, are responsible for interpreting the laws issued by Congress, he noted."

Marconi #5

Marconi sought exclusive contracts with licensees of his system, and there were other, different wireless telegraphy systems provided by competitors, especially in Germany. This led to disputes internationally.

The International Radiotelegraph Conference took place October 3 to November 3, 1906 in Berlin, Germany. Its proposals were endorsed by twenty-six countries and, if ratified, would take effect mid-1908. "The [proposed] treaty's most important provision governed wireless communication between the shore stations of contracting nations and vessels of any state, regardless of the wireless telegraphy system these ships employed. The United States insisted on ship-to-ship transmission. One clause that attracted far less attention provided for a bureau to oversee international wireless telegraphy [...]. This bureau [...] would be the first international regulatory body for broadcasting and telecommunication. This was the lasting legacy of the process that started because Marconi refused to allow his licensees to communicate with competing systems."

Marconi had used contracts and patents to establish a monopolistic position in Italy and Britain [...], but the rest of the world was wide open (Marconi 276-80).

I believe it is important to note that this was before the United Nations, or even the League of Nations, was formed.