, faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, says holds true. To be sure, these broadband labels will be focused less on telling you the nutritional value of broadband services—your internet doesn’t have saturated fat or added sugars—and more on providing a standardized framework for consumers to compare services.
“The FCC relied on the FDA for guidance in developing the label, [but] of course, there’s no nutritional information,” Narechania says via email. “But both labels present relevant information in a clean and consistent format, and both highlight some top-line items prominently, while also featuring some more detailed information for those who are interested .” back in 2016 when the proposal was first making its way across policy makers’ desks.
Beyond the transparency these labels hope to provide, Narechania says that they could also help promote competition among broadband providers as well. In turn, that could lower prices for consumers and help decrease levels of fraud by providers , which Park says could be a big win for users—especially those most disenfranchised by these companies.
However, while these new labels and competition will be beneficial for many consumers, Narechania says that they won’t unilaterally solve the problems created by broadband service providers in the US “This improves transparency for anyone who subscribes to broadband service – or who wants to subscribe,” he says. “But I should acknowledge that the new labeling rules are not going to create new competition in unserved or underserved markets.
The limitation will particularly impact broadband users in rural parts of the country who already cannot access reliable broadband service or who only have one provider to choose from. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center