\u201cUnder my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet,\u201d Pai said in a statement emailed to reporters. \u201cInstead, the FCC would simply require internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that\u2019s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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THE FCC IS HANDING OFF OVERSIGHT TO THE FTC<\/q><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe FCC\u2019s goal is to set up the Federal Trade Commission to handle all anti-competitive disputes, and the idea is that if ISPs violate their stated policies, the FTC will be able to take action.<\/p>\n
This is a puzzling plan and one that the FCC has to be well aware will not offer any legitimate consumer protections. Companies\u2019 terms of service and related policies aren\u2019t meant to protect consumers, they\u2019re meant to protect companies \u2014 and they can change at a moment\u2019s notice. While it\u2019s entirely possible that a company could violate its own policies and get in trouble with the FTC, a company could also just promise open internet protections until it doesn\u2019t feel like following them anymore, rewrite its policies, and then implement new and potentially discriminatory practices.<\/p>\n
Image: http:\/\/gsnetworks.org\/blog\/net-neutrality-day-action\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n And while this all might work out if American consumers had several internet providers to choose from at home, so that they could switch away from a bad provider and over to one that values an open internet, that\u2019s far from the case.\u00a0Less than a quarter<\/a>\u00a0of the country has two or more home internet providers<\/a> that offer basic broadband speeds \u2014 so if you don\u2019t like what your provider is doing, you\u2019re stuck.<\/p>\n
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[THIS PROPOSAL] THROTTLES ACCESS, STALLS OPPORTUNITY, AND CENSORS CONTENT.<\/q><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nRepublicans have argued that the FTC is the expert agency on anti-competitive practices and ought to be in charge here, but that obfuscates what\u2019s really happening. The FTC is a single agency tasked with protecting consumers across a wide range of industries \u2014 it simply doesn\u2019t have the focus of the FCC to narrow in on just internet providers. Nor does the FTC have the ability to proactively set tough rules. The FTC can only establish guidelines, which gives internet providers a lot more leeway to experiment with practices that work to their own advantage.<\/p>\n
In reality, the FCC is trying and will likely succeed in giving internet providers the leeway to try whatever policies they want over their own networks. Pai\u2019s argument has been that by giving internet providers this flexibility, they\u2019ll be able to make money in new ways, which they could then pour back into building out their network. The theory is that they could then bring service to areas that wouldn\u2019t be profitable enough to reach today. Since the agency wants to get more and more Americans connected, that could be considered a win \u2014 though the service may look different than what we receive today in some very important ways.<\/p>\n
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A COURT BATTLE IS CERTAIN TO FOLLOW<\/q><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nNet neutrality supporters are already fearing the worst based on what Pai has announced. Democratic FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the rules (or lack thereof) \u201cwould dismantle net neutrality as we know it by giving the green light to our nation\u2019s largest broadband providers to engage in anti-consumer practices, including blocking, slowing down traffic, and paid prioritization of online applications and services.\u201d And fellow Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel described the same fears, saying this proposal \u201chands broadband providers the power to decide what voices to amplify, which sites we can visit, what connections we can make, and what communities we create. It throttles access, stalls opportunity, and censors content.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Internet Association, a trade group that represents web 40-some web companies including Google and Facebook, pointed to lack of ISP options as a critical flaw in the plan. \u201cConsumers have little choice in their ISP,\u201d the organization said, \u201cand service providers should not be allowed to use this gatekeeper position at the point of connection to discriminate against websites and apps.\u201d And ACLU policy analyst Jay Stanley issued a similar warning, saying, \u201cGutting net neutrality will have a devastating effect on free speech online. Without it, gateway corporations like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T will have too much power to mess with the free flow of information.\u201d<\/p>\n
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GUTTING NET NEUTRALITY WILL HAVE A DEVASTATING EFFECT ON FREE SPEECH ONLINE.<\/q><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nThe rules go up for a vote next month, on December 14th, when they\u2019re almost certain to pass. The FCC is majority Republican right now, and Republicans have been calling for the end of net neutrality ever since the policy was first put in place. There\u2019s also no reason for Pai to put the measure up for a vote unless he knows it\u2019s going to pass.<\/p>\n
After the vote, it\u2019ll take a month or so before the new policies appear in the Federal Register and go into place, overwriting the only net neutrality rules. That doesn\u2019t mean everything will be all over, though: there\u2019s certain to be a court battle \u2014 or two, or three \u2014 to follow. Net neutrality advocates will take the commission to court, likely claiming that it failed to find enough evidence to warrant overturning a decision made just two years earlier. Advocates may also say the commission ignored process, having made up its mind from the start and ignoring millions of comments from the American public in support of net neutrality.<\/p>\n
Supporters of net neutrality have long argued that the rules are necessary to protect consumers\u2019 from price gouging and protect small companies from anti-competitive behavior. Paid fast lanes could allow wealthy companies to pay for better service, giving them an edge over upstarts (say, YouTube vs. a brand new streaming service). A lack of discrimination rules could let internet providers like Comcast and AT&T advantage their own content \u2014 like NBC and HBO \u2014 over others\u2019, by making it stream faster or not count toward data caps. And an absence of no blocking rules means that internet providers could stop apps that compete with their own from reaching consumers.<\/p>\n
This content was originally published on The Verge<\/a>. Find out how you can fight for net neutrality here;\u00a0https:\/\/www.battleforthenet.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n
Full disclosure:<\/strong> Fastmetrics supports net neutrality, for many reasons. We believe that internet access is a utility for everyone. Other reasons that make net neutrality important are well explained here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The current classification of internet access as a\u00a0Title II telecommunications service, should not be repealed. Net neutrality also allows us and other Bay Area ISPs<\/a> to compete with large nationwide carriers and cable companies, which enables us to keep offering an alternative service to businesses throughout the Bay Area<\/a> and L.A.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FCC To Vote To End Net Neutrality Rules On December 14th The Federal Communications Commission will vote to put an end to\u00a0its net neutrality rules next month, commission chairman Ajit Pai said today. The proposal will reverse the Title II classification of internet providers, which allows the agency to put strict limits on their behavior, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-internet-services","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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