Opinion: As expected, Trump appointee Ajit Pai, who destroyed net neutrality, is leaving office. He leaves behind a legacy of higher internet prices and broken net neutrality. Things can only get better for the internet from here.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai said he plans to leave the commission on Jan.20,2021. This opens the door to President-elect Joe Biden to select a new head of the telecommunications regulator. While best known for wrecking network neutrality, in his resignation letter Pai largely ignored that issue. His only comment relating to it was «this FCC has not shied away from making tough choices. As a result, our nation’s communications networks are now faster, stronger, and more widely deployed than ever before.» Few would agree with his rosy view. While according to the FCC’s 2020 Broadband Deployment Report, only 22.3%,21.3 million rural Americans, don’t have access to internet download speeds of at least 25 Mbps, which is the recommended speed for working from home and online schooling, the real numbers are much worse. BroadbandNow Research using the FCC’s own data found almost twice that number,42 million, don’t have broadband access. This, in turn, as the coronavirus pandemic has made working from home the new normal, has made rural areas even more unattractive. In a recent SatelliteInternet survey,36% of respondents said poor internet access is preventing them from moving to rural areas, while 67% said the internet availability in an area would affect their decision to move somewhere rural. As for net neutrality, as predicted, ISP costs to users have gone up while performance remains stagnant. The New America centrist think tank found in its 2020 Cost of Connectivity survey, which was completed before the work from home movement picked up speed, that prices have continued to spiral upward. The group also found that cost remains one of the biggest barriers to internet adoption.
