In an effort to safeguard the net neutrality rollback against court challenges, the FCC is once again re-defining what broadband is. Back in 2015, Wheeler and Co. argued that broadband wasn’t an “information service” and gave it the “telecommunications” label, but the current chairman disagrees with that change: one of Pai’s more interesting arguments for broadband being a service is that when users visit websites, technical decisions such as routing and translation of IP addresses are out of their hands, and these functionalities go beyond mere transmission. Probably a stretch, sure, but ultimately, the FCC can define it however they want.



…newly appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai must justify his decision to redefine broadband less than three years after the previous change. He argues that broadband isn’t telecommunications because it isn’t just a simple pipe to the Internet. Broadband is an information service because ISPs give customers the ability to visit social media websites, post blogs, read newspaper websites, and use search engines to find information, the FCC’s new proposal states. Even if the ISPs don’t host any of those websites themselves, broadband is still an information service under Pai’s definition because Internet access allows consumers to reach those websites.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – FCC Says Broadband Isn’t “Telecommunications”