FCC Adds A ‘Nutrition’ Label To Broadband So You Can Clearly See When Monopolies Are Ripping You Off

After countless years pondering the idea, the FCC has finally announced that it's going to politely ask the nation's lumbering telecom monopolies to affix a sort of nutrition label" on to broadband connections. The labels will clearly disclose the speed and latency (ping) of your connection, any hidden fees users will encounter, and whether the connection comes with usage limits.

The FCC provided this example of what the label will look like:

The FCC has toyed with this idea for years, but the effort could never quite get over the hump due to lobbying from telecom giants not particularly keen on transparency (if you weren't aware, the telecom and cable industry has been ripping you off with bogus fees for decades with tacit U.S. regulator approval). That changed with the passage of the The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which mandated these new labels.

The effort still needs to be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget under the Paperwork Reduction Act. And the FCC (short staffed due to GOP and industry attacks on FCC nominee Gigi Sohn) still lacks the voting majority to meaningfully implement any additional changes or potentially hold ISPs accountable should they play fast and loose with the labels. So this is all somewhat... aspirational.

While it's great the FCC is demanding more transparency from monopolies that are busy ripping people off, it's not doing much of anything to address the actual monopolies. You'd be hard-pressed to find FCC Commissioners from either party who've publicly even acknowledged that telecom monopolies exist or are a problem anytime in the last six years, much less pushed policies that address the issue.

What you get instead is a lot of nebulous, politically safe rhetoric about the digital divide." But no honest acknowledgement from the folks in power why this divide still exists in 2022 despite billions upon billions in government subsidies, tax breaks, merger approvals, and regulatory favors - all of which you were told repeatedly by industry were supposed to usher in the golden age of uniform, affordable broadband.

Yes, we're about to spend $50 billion on broadband courtesy of the infrastructure bill and COVID relief. But telecom giants are working overtime to ensure the lion's share of this money goes to their (mysteriously perpetually unfinished) efforts to bridge the digital divide" and not to meaningful competitors within their existing footprints. Having an expert telecom consumer protection regulator that cares about protecting markets, consumers, and competitors from monopoly power still matters.

At the moment, telecom policy is generally ignored due to a myopic focus on Big Tech." What telecom policy does exist generally involves Republicans all but lobotomizing telecom oversight, and Democrats throwing an endless number of band-aids at the problems caused by mindless consolidation and monopolization (net neutrality! temporary discounts for poor people! nutrition labels!).

But very few people in DC have the political courage to attack or even acknowledge the real problem (monopolies) at its root. Being transparently informed you're being ripped off is fine. Actually stopping monopolies from ripping consumers off via policies that encourage creative competition would be better.