21 March 2020 (Brussels, Belgium) – Last weekend New York State closed all non-essential “brick-and-mortar” businesses, ordering all those workforces who were able to work from home, and yesterday California did the same. Zoom meetings from home are now the norm for people working for both the private sector and government. And just follow your Twitter or Facebook feed: everybody is showing off their Zoom backgrounds.
In the U.S. one might reasonably want to know whether the internet service providers (ISP) are operating normally during this period. Several of the U.S.-based telecom friends called their California and New York ISPs to ask. All answered (more or less) the same way: “Were doing business as usual because we are like a utility.”
SURPRISE!! The present humane, responsible, productive 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.
My regular readers know I have been banging on about the 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. Because they are.
Telecom lawyers, start your engines.