Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Throughout the Trump administration’s tenure, deregulation of various fields of industry were a common and relentless effort. In some cases, it could be argued to be worthwhile. In others, well... Net Neutrality rules prohibiting specialized pricing based on internet services were removed, giving power to service providers to handle network traffic prioritization and packaging as they pleased. The orchestrator behind removal of these protections? Largely none other than FCC Chairman and former ISP lobbyist Ajit Pai, and now as Trump’s presidency is coming to an end and President Elect Joe Biden is readying for his term, Pai has announced he will be stepping down from his position.
Word of Ajit Pai’s exit from the FCC was announced fairly recently, as reported by The Verge. According to a statement from Pai, his exit will take place on January 20 as Biden takes office in the White House as President of the United States.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communications Commission, including as Chairman of the FCC over the past four years,” Pai wrote in his announcement. “To be the first Asian-American to chair the FCC has been a particular privilege. As I often say: only in America.”
Also, only in America did Pai use his position to spearhead efforts to eliminate Obama-Era net neutrality protections and rules regarding the packaging, pricing of internet services, and the ability of service providers to prioritize network traffic based on the source of traffic. It was arguably a heavy blow dealt to fair and anti-predatory business practices which allowed possibilities such as a cable company like Comcast to throttle bandwidth from opposing services like Netflix. For now, Comcast is content to expand data cap policies as we enter an era of higher data use than ever. Nonetheless, it should then come as little surprise that as Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden is preparing to take office, Ajit Pai likely sees it’s probably time to tuck tail and run.
As we await Biden’s entrance into office in January 2021, it would appear that at least one part of the tide is turning. And as Ajit Pai steps down, it’s probably not the last we’ll hear of Net Neutrality policies he worked so hard to undo.