What Broadband ‘Nutrition Labels’ Could Reveal About Your Internet Provider

OTI policy analyst Claire Park is quoted in a Popular Science article about the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to go ahead with a broadband nutrition label requirement for internet services providers, explaining the importance of the move.

It’s a move that Claire Park, a policy analyst at Open Technology Institute at New America, says is much needed in the landscape of broadband providers. “Internet service providers are notoriously not transparent about pricing, speed, or other terms of service, leading to high prices for broadband nationally,” Park says via email.

“The speeds and prices companies advertise often don’t match up to the service people actually experience, nor their monthly bills,” she continues. “The federally mandated broadband nutrition label will require that companies share how much they’re charging for exactly what kinds of service… and ensure there’s no shady business like pricing or service quality discrimination based on race, income level, and other factors.” 

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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 (such as promising services or performance that they fail to deliver on), which Park says could be a big win for users—especially those most disenfranchised by these companies.

“We’ve seen throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that unequal access and lack of affordable internet service isn’t just a nuisance, but a matter of life or death,” Park says. “Seniors, veterans, low-income students, Black households, people of color, the Indigenous are just some communities who already face economic, social, political marginalization and therefore face even higher barriers to internet access. Transparency in pricing as well as speed is absolutely essential to making the internet more affordable and meeting people’s needs.”

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“The nutrition label is a huge, long-awaited step forward for people to easily access improved, affordable internet service in this country,” Park says. “But of course there’s always more to do when it comes to holding companies accountable for their practices. Going forward, we’d love to see greater federal scrutiny around mergers and acquisitions in the broadband marketplace that threaten to further consolidate the playing field and make it harder for people to have as many options as possible for internet service.”