Listen: What The End Of Net Neutrality Means For The Healthcare Industry

Following the decision of the FCC vote to rollback the mandate on Net Neutrality, you’re probably wondering how this will affect you. However, since it’s a little too early to say yet, it is important to know that the new order put into effect basically requires that ISP’s be honest and forthcoming when it comes to their agenda in prioritizing internet traffic. Recently, Ryan B. Marcus and Lisa Schmitz Mazur who are attorneys for McDermott Will & Emery stated in an advisory that, “it is a fair bet that health care will remain unaffected at least for now.”

Although, this still doesn’t address the possible shortage of bandwidth that us as users might experience as a limited selection of ISP’s could become a cumbersome burden to bear. This led Chief Technology Officer of Mimosa Networks, Jaime Fink to say, “I don’t think we know what the real needs of the healthcare networks are going to be.” It’s also been said that with the uprising of technologies like Narrowband IoT and especially regarding 5G wireless connectivity, these protocols should help minimize any delays that time-critical device-based care might encounter.

So, with all this to consider, even though Net Neutrality still is being analyzed on how it will ultimately shape our usage, the new order should ultimately reduce costs overall as expensive clinical settings will be moved into the home.