The new FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, announced last month that the agency would vote to undo its 2015 Net Neutrality rules. Those rules prevent companies like Verizon and Comcast from blocking or slowing down websites or creating internet “fast lanes.”
That vote is scheduled for December 14, 2017.
His plan calls for removing the FCC’s restrictions on how broadband companies can handle web traffic, as well as putting the Federal Trade Commission, a consumer protection agency, in charge of policing internet providers.
This is his plan despite the fact that, FTC Commissioner, Terrell McSweeny, has stated; “The FTC alone can’t save the open internet if the FCC scraps Net Neutrality.”
The flip side of that is that Bob Quinn, AT&T’s head of regulatory affairs wrote, in a blog post
“AT&T intends to operate its network the same way AT&T operates its network today: in an open and transparent manner. We will not block websites, we will not throttle or degrade internet traffic based on content, and we will not unfairly discriminate in our treatment of internet traffic,”
Of course his company also says they’ll be at your house between 10 and 2. How’s that working for you?
Speaking of an ISP, how about Verizon. That’s who the new FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, used to work for, maybe he still does.
Anyone who believes that Net Neutrality is unneeded ignores the long history of ISPs violating the premise of an open internet. It is well documented that Cable and phone companies violate those principles on a regular basis. If they only partially comply to the rules now what will they do if Chairman Pai has his way?
More of the same, and worse;
The following facts have been verified and provided by Free Press
MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.
COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.
TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.
AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.
WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.
MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.
PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.
AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.
EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.
VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.
AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.
VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.
~Free Press
Net Neutrality has been the internet’s guiding principle, even before that principal had a name. It preserves our right to communicate freely online. If we lose Net Neutrality we lose the internet as we know it.
We would go from an open internet that has allowed creative innovation and provided a platform for those who have all too often been marginalized and or shut out.
Without Net Neutrality there is no preventing cable and phone companies from closing down parts of the internet, opening them only for those willing and able to pay. The internet would be for the haves only. The have nots would lose access, their voices would be silenced.
Even those with means would have no protections from having websites shut down or otherwise controlled or sanitized.
There would be no online activism which in turn would help those in power to curb activism on the streets as well.
Loss of Net Neutrality could devastate small business owners, especially startups who rely on the open internet to launch their businesses, create markets, advertise their products and services, and reach customers.
Net Neutrality preserves an open internet, allowing for a fair and level playing field.
It helps small business to compete with big business.
Many of the big businesses do not like that.
That is why the cable and phone companies have been working hard and spending big to destroy Net Neutrality.
No company, big or small, should be allowed to interfere with an open internet.
Net Neutrality has been there for you and now needs you to stand up for it.
Many are protesting Verizon, Chairman Pai’s “former” employer. Find a protest near you, here.
Urge the agency to ditch this plan, and tell your members of Congress to act to protect Net Neutrality