The potential return of net neutrality and the future of the digital divide

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The talk of late at the Federal Communications Commission is whether to restore net neutrality. When the Barack Obama administration put those rules in place in 2015, the idea was to ensure that internet service providers — or ISPs — like Verizon and Comcast gave consumers fair access to the web and didn’t favor sites and services they controlled. But that mandate was repealed two years later under then-FCC Chair Ajit Pai, chosen by then-President Donald Trump. He argued that net neutrality would disincentivize companies from building their networks in low-income, urban and rural areas. Critics of the repeal argued that rural America’s ability to access the internet would be hurt. After the federal repeal, some states adopted their own net neutrality regulations while others didn’t, which provided a pretty great data set for researchers wanting to know: What would getting rid of net neutrality mean for internet access in rural areas?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Programming is supported by the University of Minnesota, where the spirit of discovery
0:04.3	is helping Minnesotans age healthier, fight climate change, and more.
0:09.1	See the stories at system.umn.edu.
0:13.8	Slash.
0:14.8	Dear MN.
0:17.8	Could net neutrality do away with the digital divide?
0:21.3	The data is in.
0:23.1	From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.
0:26.1	I'm Lily Dremolley.
0:30.0	The talk today of the Federal Communications Commission is whether to restore net neutrality.
0:42.6	When the Obama administration put rules in place in 2015, the idea was to ensure that internet
0:48.2	service providers, or ISPs like Verizon and Comcast, gave consumers fair access to the web,
0:55.7	and didn't favor sites and services they happened to control.
0:59.8	That mandate was repealed two years later, under FCC Chair Ajit Pai, chosen by Ben President
1:06.1	Donald Trump.
1:07.4	We could end up disincentivizing companies from wanting to build out internet access to
1:12.4	a lot of parts of the country, low income, urban, and rural areas, for example.
1:16.7	After the Federal repeal, some states adopted their own net neutrality regulations.
1:22.0	Others didn't.
1:23.3	Which provided a pretty great data set for researchers wanting to know what would
1:28.1	getting rid of net neutrality mean for internet access in rural areas.
1:33.3	Adam Renhoff, economics professor at Middle Tennessee University, had that exact question.
	...

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