Clinton vows to defend net neutrality—Trump calls it “attack on the Internet."

The 2016 presidential election is likely to have a major impact on how the US government tries to expand broadband deployment and how it regulates Internet service providers. But while we have a pretty good idea of how a President Hillary Clinton would approach the broadband industry, there’s very little to go on when predicting broadband policy under a President Donald Trump.

Clinton’s technology plan includes several initiatives designed to “deliver high-speed broadband to all Americans,” and it promises to defend network neutrality rules that prevent ISPs from discriminating against online services. There are questions about how Clinton would implement the plan and whether it's aggressive enough to achieve 100 percent broadband deployment, and her campaign has declined to provide more specifics. But the mere fact that Clinton has outlined some clear broadband goals sets the Democratic nominee apart from the other candidates.

Republican nominee Donald Trump doesn’t seem to have any plan for increasing access to broadband, and there are indications that he would not support new consumer protection regulations. He weighed in on net neutrality, but only in a November 2014 tweet:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a public policy think tank, recently analyzed Clinton’s and Trump’s positions on technology. There were six broadband and telecommunications policy categories, and for five of them Trump was listed as having “no position” or having made no comment. Trump had no position on wireless spectrum and 5G; a Communications Act update; broadband and telecom subsidies; broadband adoption and digital literacy; and broadband competition and public-private partnerships.

Net neutrality was the one category where Trump had a position, but only because of the two-year-old tweet.

Besides "that one tweet from 2014 on net neutrality, it's pretty much radio silence from the Trump camp," ITIF telecommunications policy analyst Doug Brake told Ars.

Trump has finally just hired an aide to help him develop a telecom plan, Politico reported Friday. The aide, Jeffrey Eisenach of the American Enterprise Institute, is described by Politico as "a crusader against regulation" and is a staunch opponent of net neutrality rules. Eisenach's appointment suggests Trump might pursue a deregulatory telecommunications agenda, but the candidate still isn't talking publicly about specific policies.

Brake didn’t endorse either candidate, but he said that when it comes to broadband, “Clinton at least has a plan. You can quibble with some of the details in it, but she has clearly thought hard about what the government’s role should be in promoting innovation and has policies that will work to promote innovation throughout the economy.” The ITIF describes itself as nonpartisan, but the group prefers a more conservative approach to telecommunications policy than the one chartered under President Obama and current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has opposed net neutrality rules and Internet regulation in general, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein supports net neutrality rules. Stein has called for universal broadband access—but she also claimed that wireless Internet signals can damage children’s brains despite a lack of scientific evidence to support such concerns.

None of the four candidates has responded to our repeated requests for more details. So with the clock ticking toward November 8, we’ll have to settle for examining their public statements.

The Clinton broadband plan

Clinton’s tech agenda describes the nation’s broadband problems as follows: “Millions of American households, particularly in rural areas, still lack access to any fixed broadband provider, around 30 percent of households across America have not adopted broadband (with much higher levels in low-income communities), and American consumers pay more for high-speed plans than consumers in some other advanced nations.”

Clinton cited research from the FCC, which defines broadband as Internet access with speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream, but she is flexible on what speeds the nation should strive for. By 2020, she wants 100 percent of American households to have the option of buying affordable broadband at “speeds sufficient to meet families’ needs.”

This wouldn’t necessarily involve stringing fiber wires to every home. Clinton wants federal agencies to consider fiber, fixed wireless, and satellite technologies for bringing broadband to unserved areas. Here are some of her proposals:

Continue investments in the Connect America Fund, the Rural Utilities Service program, the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), and Lifeline.
Use Lifeline to help people learn how to use the Internet and expand access to cheap devices.
Create a competitive grant program encouraging local governments to reduce regulatory barriers to private investment; promote “dig once” programs that install fiber or fiber conduit during road construction projects; and develop public-private partnerships.
Expand federal funding to bring free Wi-Fi and high-speed Internet to “recreation centers, public buildings like one-stop career centers, and transportation infrastructure such as train stations, airports, and mass transit systems.”
Accelerate 5G cellular deployment and other wireless advances by reallocating and repurposing spectrum, and use federal research funding for “Internet of Things” test beds and field trials.
Encourage state and local governments to relax rules that protect incumbents from new competitors, such as “local rules governing utility-pole access that restrain additional fiber and small cell broadband deployment.”
Push federal agencies to identify anticompetitive practices “such as tying arrangements, price fixing, and exclusionary conduct,” and refer potential violations of antitrust law to the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission. (This proposal isn’t specific to broadband but could have an impact on ISPs.)
Separately, Clinton pledged to defend the FCC’s net neutrality rules in court and continue to enforce them. She also supports the FCC's related decision under Wheeler to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act; Title II, while controversial, is the legal mechanism used to enforce the net neutrality rules.

Clinton’s plan leaves out some of the specifics that will be needed to achieve her goals, and the plan proactively takes credit for 5G development that is likely to happen regardless of who wins the presidency. But that doesn’t seem to bother Harold Feld, senior VP of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that generally supports Wheeler’s broadband deployment and net neutrality policies.

“This is not the blueprint, this is the promise,” Feld said. “Once they get in, they're still going to have to do the blueprint, and that's when we'll see if they'll swing for the bleachers or just try to play it safe.”

As a campaign platform, what Clinton has proposed is “very good,” he said. 100 percent deployment probably won’t happen, but setting the goal at 100 percent makes it more likely that she’ll get to 95 percent or so, Feld said.

“The thing that worries me is this is a very incremental approach,” Feld said of Clinton’s plan. “It builds on what's out there now, it generally solidifies around basic points of agreement.” For example, Clinton hasn’t talked about whether the FCC should crack down on Internet data caps, but “those are not the kinds of things you put in a campaign platform,” Feld said.

A Clinton FCC seems likely to continue on a path similar to the one taken by Obama and Wheeler. Yet she is getting support from the same telecom industry that bitterly opposed Wheeler’s net neutrality plan and many of his other initiatives. Telecom services and equipment companies donated $640,247 to Clinton this year, while giving just $19,319 to Trump, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Clinton also won an endorsement from Jim Cicconi, a longtime GOP supporter and senior executive VP at AT&T—a company that sued the FCC to stop the net neutrality rules.

“This year I think it’s vital to put our country’s well being ahead of party,” Cicconi said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Hillary Clinton is experienced, qualified, and will make a fine president. The alternative, I fear, would set our nation on a very dark path.”

Brake said he is hopeful that Clinton would take a more “pragmatic” approach than Wheeler. Though Clinton supported Wheeler’s Title II net neutrality plan, Brake pointed to an interview Clinton gave last year in which she said net neutrality rules could alternatively have been imposed through an update of the Communications Act.

That statement “indicates to me that she gets that Title II isn't something to be desired in and of itself,” Brake said. It’s thus probably unlikely that a Clinton FCC would be more liberal than an Obama one, making things like network unbundling a long shot, Brake said.

Trump's (lack of a) plan

Trump, on the other hand, is a total wild card. He would like the FCC to fine journalists who are critical of him. Beyond that, there's little indication of how the FCC would operate if he’s elected, though not much would get done initially, as he has promised “a temporary moratorium on new agency regulations.”

Though he did take a position on net neutrality back in 2014, it isn't an issue Trump continued talking about. A lot has happened in net neutrality since Trump initially weighed in—the FCC passed its rules in February 2015 and defeated a broadband industry lawsuit this year.

Even in a private, off-the-record meeting with tech industry groups, "Trump's team made clear it did not expect to craft a full, new tech platform," Politico reported, citing sources who attended the meeting. "But the GOP candidate's aides urged the industry to submit their recommendations for potential federal agency appointments—as well as regulations they'd like to see shredded if Trump is elected president," the sources said.

“Clinton at least has a plan” for the broadband industry, Feld said. “Whether you think it’s a detailed enough plan, at least she understands the issue here and has a plan. Trump’s plan is basically, 'if we wish hard enough for the things people like, we'll get them.'"

Much would depend on who Trump nominates to lead the FCC. A Republican president might be expected to consider the FCC’s current Republicans, Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, who have opposed most of Wheeler’s major initiatives. But it’s difficult to even make a guess on what industry a Trump FCC chairperson would come from.

“If he pulls somebody from Silicon Valley to do this, it’s going to be very different than if he pulls someone from the cable or telco world,” Feld said. But, again, it’s not clear what kind of chairperson Trump would prefer. “That means you really just can’t tell because I don’t think he's going to involve himself in any of the details,” Feld said.

If Eisenach becomes FCC chairman or plays a big role in determining Trump policies, Feld said the agenda would be "voraciously pro-corporate and anti-consumer," representing "bad news for competition, and bad news for consumers." (We were unable to get an interview with Eisenach.)

Trump may have developed relationships with broadband industry executives and lawyers when he was a reality TV show star, so perhaps he would nominate someone from the broadcast industry. “It’s total speculation, but he could go with an existing Republican commissioner or some random lawyer that he's worked with before,” Brake said. “It seems a total possibility that he could pick a random friend that he's worked with before. Who knows.”

As for Eisenach, Brake said he is "a well-known champion of light-touch regulation in telecom."

Wheeler’s five-year term technically extends into 2018, but FCC chairs usually leave their post the same year a new president takes office. Wheeler would thus likely move on in the months after the January 2017 inauguration.

Wheeler has not disclosed his plans, which seem to hinge on the election's outcome. A Bloomberg report said he intends to stay until the middle of 2017 if Clinton is elected. That isn’t an unusual timeline, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Wheeler leave earlier than that if Trump wins. Party changes in the White House tend to be followed by quick exits for FCC chairs, and, during a recent Congressional hearing, Wheeler himself hinted that he might leave quickly if Trump wins.

Speculation about who Clinton might nominate as FCC chairperson has included Susan Ness, a former FCC commissioner and one of Clinton’s biggest fundraisers; and Karen Kornbluh, a Nielsen executive and former US ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to Politico.

Feld said Clinton’s choice of FCC chair might depend on her other appointments. For example, if Clinton wins the presidency and appoints a moderate to head up the Justice Department’s antitrust division, she might face pressure to make a more liberal appointment to the FCC, he said. That could work the other way, too. If Clinton appoints a vigorous antitrust enforcer at the DOJ, she might choose someone more moderate for the FCC, Feld speculated.

“Unlike Trump, where you can't tell what’s going to happen because he doesn’t care about the details, with Clinton you can’t tell what’s going to happen because she will care enormously about the details,” Feld said.

Green Party and Libertarian candidates

Just like Clinton and Trump, the campaigns of Stein and Johnson did not answer our questions about their broadband and net neutrality policies.

Stein’s platform vows to “protect the free Internet,” and she has called broadband Internet access a “human right.” But she doesn’t seem to offer a plan for making broadband deployment universal. She's also skeptical about the use of Wi-Fi and cell phones.

Dr. Jill Stein ✔ @DrJillStein
Access to information is a right, not a commodity. The Internet is a public asset we must defend from corporate stranglehold. #NetNeutrality

At a campaign event this year, Stein was asked about health effects of wireless Internet in schools. She responded, “we should not be subjecting kids’ brains, especially, to that. We don’t follow that issue in this country, but in Europe, where they do, they have good precautions around wireless, maybe not good enough. It’s very hard to study this stuff. We make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die.”

In a Q&A on her website, Stein denied that her concern about Wi-Fi undermines the Green Party’s call to make broadband access a taxpayer-funded utility.

Feld said that “it is difficult for me to be objective about Jill Stein in that she basically treats the tremendous amount of advocacy that I and others have done on wireless and Wi-Fi in schools as being a crime against public health. I do not see how you can manage a modern FCC when you essentially apply the same principles of pseudo-science to wireless that the anti-vaxxer crowd applies to vaccines.”

Johnson’s platform doesn’t include a plan for accelerating broadband deployment, but he and other Libertarians generally prefer free market solutions instead of government intervention.

His platform has a section on preserving “Internet freedom and security” that objects to regulation of the Internet in general, with an emphasis on privacy rights.

“There is nothing wrong with the Internet that I want the government to fix,” Johnson said. Johnson opposes attempts to increase the government’s ability to monitor private information, saying that we shouldn’t be “throwing away our right to privacy” in order to boost security.

Johnson’s platform doesn’t specifically address net neutrality, but he has spoken about his opposition to network neutrality rules in years past.

With “net neutrality, the notion is that it’s going to create a freer environment when the reality is… is there really an issue now?" Johnson said during a Q&A in 2011. "And if you get government involved in getting its nose in the tent isn’t this ultimately gonna make things a lot worse and cost us a lot more than just doing nothing? So all of my free market friends, all of my computer-savvy people that are advising me, say that net neutrality is anything but. All of what's it supposed to accomplish that actually by supporting it you’re creating the opposite."

The modern, controversial FCC

The FCC under the Obama administration has taken on a much greater public prominence, which peaked during the net neutrality debate that inspired 4 million public comments. Tom Wheeler has been the subject of John Oliver skits and been called to testify at many contentious Congressional hearings led by Republicans who want the FCC to impose fewer regulations on Internet providers.

Whoever wins the presidency and has to choose the next FCC chair will face a highly scrutinized decision. A conservative nominee would draw outrage from consumer advocates who pushed for strong net neutrality rules, while a liberal choice could face plenty of criticism, especially if the Senate (which confirms nominees) remains in Republican hands.

Already, the Senate is refusing to extend the term of Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel unless Wheeler promises to step down after the election.

“After the net neutrality decision there was no doubt, there is going to be a lot of scrutiny of who the next choice of FCC chair is going to be,” Feld said. “The FCC has achieved a lot of visibility, and not just from the left but from the right.”