Digifesto

On Sunday, New York State is closing all non-essential brick-and-mortar businesses and ordering all workforce who are able to work from home. Zoom meetings from home are now the norm for people working for both the private sector and government.

One might reasonably want to know whether the internet service providers (ISP) are operating normally during this period. I had occasion to call up Optimum yesterday and ask. I was told, very helpfully, “Were doing business as usual because we are like a utility.”

It’s quite clear that the present humane and responsible approach to COVID-19 depends on broad and uninterrupted access to the Internet to homes. The government and businesses would cease to function without it. Zoom meetings are performing the role that simple audio telephony once did. And executive governments are recognizing this as they use their emergency powers.

There has been a strain of “technology policy” thought that some parts of “the tech sector” should be regulated as utilities. In 2015, the FCC reclassified broadband access as a utility as part of their Net Neutrality decision. In 2018, this position was reversed. This was broadly seen as a win for the telecom companies.

One plausible political consequence of COVID-19 is the reconsideration of the question of whether ISPs are utilities or not. They are.