Opinion Editorial: Senate Net Neutrality Debate Misses Bigger Issue for Rural Communities
Opinion Editorial by Betsy Huber
National Grange President
Once again, net neutrality is the hot topic in Congress as the Senate begins debate on nullifying a 2017 Federal Communications Commission vote to change broadband service regulations.
For more than a decade, this issue has been lobbied, litigated and shouted over. During that time, there have been at least half a dozen policy changes at the FCC — an average of about one every two years. Meanwhile, the FCC and multiple courts have engaged in a non-stop legal battle over the commission’s authority, including a multi-year litigation over how to define and properly apply the word “ancillary.”
Unfortunately, this decade-long debate has obscured a far more important broadband issue: the need to promote high-speed deployment, especially in rural communities. The National Grange has focused Congress on this problem for years. As a member of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, I have spent countless hours documenting economic and social problems caused by lack of rural broadband.
