Internet service provider Frontier
Communications is enlisting its employees in a fight over net neutrality in California.
Specifically, the company is asking employees to urge California Governor Jerry Brown to veto a law that
would restore the Obama-era open internet rules. The measure, SB 822, was passed by state lawmakers late last month. Brown has until Sept. 30 to sign the measure.
"I oppose SB 822 because it
will harm consumers and impose complex layers of costly regulation," reads the company's form letter for employees.
"This will deter investment and delay broadband deployment in California, especially in rural areas that still lack high-speed Internet access."
The letter also states that the bill "will
essentially create ''free' Internet for big users of bandwidth like Netflix and Google, but increase costs for consumers and decrease investment that creates good jobs."
Frontier recently sent an email
to workers, urging them to send the form letter, according to Motherboard. Frontier hasn't yet responded to MediaPost's request for comment.
The California net neutrality law
prohibits broadband providers from blocking or throttling traffic, charging higher fees for fast-lane service, and from exempting their own video streams from consumers' data caps.
The
Obama-era FCC passed similar regulations, but they were repealed last year by the current FCC. Chairman Ajit Pai, who spearheaded the repeal, has repeatedly said the former regulations depressed
investment by providers.
But net neutrality advocates who examined the broadband carriers' stock reports reached different conclusions. The pro-neutrality advocacy group Free Press said
last year that investment by 13 major broadband providers increased in the two years after the FCC
passed the net neutrality regulations.
California is one of several states to try to pass net neutrality laws this year. Governors of Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Montana, Hawaii and
Vermont recently signed orders requiring state agencies to contract only with providers that follow net neutrality principles. In Oregon, lawmakers passed a bill that prohibits state agencies from
contracting with broadband providers that violate net neutrality principles. Washington state passed a more comprehensive law that prohibits broadband providers operating in the state from blocking or
throttling traffic and from charging companies higher fees for prioritized delivery.
It is not yet known whether the FCC's order repealing net neutrality also prohibited states from passing
their own laws. But some legal experts have cast doubt on whether that prohibition is valid. The FCC's decision to revoke the rules, as well as its decision to prevent states from issuing their own
laws, is being challenged in court by a broad coalition of tech companies, net neutrality proponents, and attorneys general.