5 Takeaways From the New Net-Neutrality Rules

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to regulate Internet service like a public utility, expanding the U.S. government’s oversight of a once lightly regulated business.

But that doesn’t mean things are changing just yet. Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s move.

#1: What Happened Today?

The Federal Communications Commission approved rules that will prevent Internet service providers from blocking traffic or charging websites for better service. The move comes after President Barack Obama threw his weight behind the issue late last year and will govern the Internet with the same rules used to oversee the heavily regulated phone business.

#2: What Comes Next?

A countdown, then probably a lawsuit. The rules were passed 3-2 by the Democratic majority on the commission and will be published in the Federal Register within a few weeks, starting a 60-day countdown after which they will take effect. Once that happens, telecommunications and cable companies have said they will turn to the courts to get them thrown out. Republican lawmakers in Congress, meanwhile, are trying to craft a legislative alternative.

#3: Who's Going to Win?

The FCC doesn’t have a great record with net neutrality in the courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2010 ruled the commission overstepped when it cited Comcast for slowing down traffic for users of file-sharing sites like BitTorrent, and the same court a year ago overturned the FCC’s effort to draft Open Internet rules.

The court, however, didn’t say in the 2014 decision that the FCC couldn’t find the authority to enforce net neutrality. This time, the commission is basing the rules in Title II of the Communications Act, which may give them a more solid basis for regulation.

#4: So What Does This Mean for Me?

Probably very little. While carriers have experimented with new pricing models that would let a company like Amazon, hypothetically, pay the cost of the wireless data needed to use its services, such arrangements are rare, and attempts to block traffic are rarer still. Advocates though say the rules will help preserve the environment in which Internet companies have blossomed. Companies like crafts website Etsy have warned that a failure to enshrine net-neutrality principals could stifle the growth of the next crop of Web startups.

#5: Will My Netflix Movies Stream More Smoothly Now?

Netflix’s dispute with carriers last year was centered on a different issue than net neutrality, the fees that Internet service providers charge to hook up with their networks, or “interconnection” agreements in regulatory parlance. The new rules do assert a role for the FCC in such disputes and in the process push the commission’s oversight into a new area of the Internet. The commission will adjudicate complaints on a case-by-case basis. But the legal basis for that effort may be shakier, and it isn’t clear what sorts of deals the commission might consider unreasonable.