FCC rule against broadband digital discrimination goes into effect

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law required the FCC to adopt rules to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination in regard to access to broadband, and those rules went into effect on March 22.

According to the FCC, the rules will “help to ameliorate a digital divide that has underpinnings in the country's historical segregation and redlining practices in housing.”  The six characteristics of digital discrimination of broadband access, which providers need to avoid are: income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion and national origin.