Institutional Considerations for the Regulation of Internet Service Providers

Since the dawn of the commercial Internet, how to treat Internet service providers (ISP) has bedeviled the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The reasons are easily enough known. The Communications Act--last subject to major overhaul in 1996, when broadband Internet was still in its adolescence--does not speak clearly to how the FCC should regulate ISPs. The FCC has thus been left to grapple with how archaic sounding terms, concocted when the Bell operating companies still dominated the landscape, apply in modern times: adjunct-to-basic, "enhanced" services, ancillary authority, etcetera. At the same time, broadband Internet has become central to American life. More and more traditional communications services are being operated over IP-based platforms. And there is a growing unease with the power that large, agglomerative entities--ISPs, but also platforms like Google and Facebook--wield over the consumer. Here, Deacon examines who should regulate ISPs and under what general framework.