Friday, December 15, 2017

On Thursday, as protesters gathered in Washington D.C., the United States Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai voted 3-2 to overturn a 2015 decision, commonly called Net Neutrality, that forbade Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T from blocking individual websites or charging websites or customers more for faster load times.

Specifically, the 2015 decision placed the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Telecommunications Act, which established that Internet access must be regulated under the same rules as a utility. Currently, in the U.S., telephones are regulated in this way, but cable television is not. Cable providers can offer bundled services and otherwise select which channels to offer customers; they do not have to offer access to every channel the way ISPs have offered access to the whole Internet. The new rules voted on Thursday transfer the Internet from the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission to the Federal Trade Commission, which means that instead of being forbidden from blocking websites or offering different access speeds, ISPs will only be required to disclose having done so.

“There are going to be fast lanes and slow lanes,” says telecom analyst Gigi Sohn, who worked with Pai’s predecessor Tom Wheeler in 2015. “As a consumer, that means some of your favorite websites are going to load more slowly, and it also may mean some of your favorite content goes away because the provider just can’t pay the fee.”

“Net neutrality allowed something like Etsy to hang out a shingle on the web and give it a try,” says former Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson.

Supporters of the new rule argue that Net Neutrality regulations were unnecessary. Commissioner Michael O’Reilly pointed out that the Internet “has functioned without net neutrality rules for far longer than it has without [sic] them.”

“Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the internet for most of its existence,” said Chairman Pai, who argued that removing the rules would make the Internet freer and more open.

“[T]he internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has,” promised AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Bob Quinn, who said his company would not block websites or discriminate with respect to content.

The new rules will not take effect for several weeks. Opposition is already under way. The United States Congress could overrule the FCC’s decision by passing legislation. One such bill, House Resolution 4585, or the “Save Net Neutrality Act of 2017,” was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on December 7. The decision could also be challenged in court: The Attorneys General for the states of New York and Washington have both announced plans for lawsuits against the new rules.

According to a poll conducted last week by the University of Maryland, more than 80% of registered U.S. voters opposed the repeal of Net Neutrality, 75% of registered Republicans, 89% of registered Democrats, and 86% of independents, those not registered to either party.

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