The next time you go to buy a home or mobile internet service, you’ll see a new label that details how much you can expect to pay, the average download speeds, and information about the internet provider’s regulations.
The new labels will be required to be displayed by all major internet service providers (ISPs)
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), that information will now be standardized across carriers and shown in a new disclosure similar to the nutrition labels found on food packaging in grocery store aisles.
The new labels, which go into effect on Wednesday and will be required to be displayed by all major internet service providers (ISPs), are among the latest efforts taken by the US government to assist consumers in making sense of the current mix of plans, fees, and promotional rates.
Officials from the FCC and the White House believe that the labels’ transparency could save Americans money.
“The FCC borrowed the nutrition label model format from food products because we wanted to make basic information about broadband internet service easily recognizable and easy to understand,” Alejandro Roark, the FCC’s bureau chief for consumer and government affairs, told reporters on a conference call.
The FCC mandated to include information on early termination costs, data caps, and network practices like speed throttling
The FCC-mandated disclosures, known as “consumer broadband labels,” must be available at the point of sale both online and in stores—and in many circumstances, in both English and Spanish.
They will need to include information on early termination costs, data caps, and network practices like speed throttling. And they will need to be easily accessible. Providers will not be allowed to bury the labels in fine type or on separate web pages, and consumers must be able to easily access them whenever they pay their bills or compare plans, according to Roark.
In many areas of the country, Americans continue to have access to only a few providers. In a report released last month, the FCC discovered that tens of millions of Americans continue to lack access to high-speed internet. This problem is especially significant in rural and tribal regions, where around one-quarter of Americans do not have internet access.
23 million homes are at risk of losing their internet subscriptions entirely due to the impending expiration of a popular federal aid program
Worse, an estimated 23 million homes — nearly one in every five US households and 59 million Americans overall — are at risk of losing their internet subscriptions entirely due to the impending expiration of a popular federal aid program, which will run out of money as early as this month. Surveys reveal that without the Affordable Connectivity Program, many people will have to choose between having internet at home and paying for groceries.
Still, forcing ISPs to be more transparent with consumers could be a minor step toward promoting competition among internet service providers, and it is part of a larger Biden administration campaign to combat junk fees and other deceptive business practices, according to a White House official.
“These are mechanisms that are designed to make it more likely that companies will compete with each other on the grounds of consumer price and quality of products and less likely to compete with each other on confusing terms or by misleading customers,” the official said.