![]() Today, a heavy Internet user pays the same as a light user. However, electricity companies still charge consumers for how much electricity they use. Analogies are often made to electricity: electric companies don’t care what you use electricity for, they just send it to your house. Proponents of net neutrality argue the Internet should be a “dumb pipe” that merely gives access to the Internet without caring what content you view. Why shouldn’t ISPs be allowed to charge Google and Facebook for the cost of their infrastructure? On our highways, we ask 18-wheelers to pay higher tolls because they cause more wear and tear on the roads. There’s also the fact that just a few sites, like Netflix and YouTube, make up the vast majority of web traffic. In an industry devoid of competition, preventing new start-up ISPs could be detrimental in the long-term. Pai calls it, increases compliance costs and raises the already high barrier to entry for new companies. Why, then, did he choose to be deliberately misleading, rather than just making his case? The fact is that there are real and legitimate arguments against net neutrality. Pai obviously believes that a non-neutral net is what is best for the future of the Internet. Several ISPs have been accused of throttling Netflix, for example. ![]() This technology also allows ISPs to “throttle” different sites, either speeding up or slowing down the speed at which the content is delivered. In 2004, Madison River Communications was fined by the FCC because they blocked customers from accessing Vonage, which provided internet phone services that competed with Madison River’s own phone company. That technology was not developed until 2003, when internet security companies created a “firewall” that could filter out harmful viruses.Īlmost immediately after this technology was developed, ISPs discovered a new use for it: they could now block websites that competed with their own services. The Internet didn’t require federal regulation because it was simply impossible to discriminate against different types of web traffic. ![]() unfettered by Federal or State regulation.’” But this ignores the very basic fact that the Internet was still, as a practical matter, neutral all through the 1990s and early 2000s. Pai said, “At the dawn of the commercial Internet, President Clinton and a Republican Congress agreed that it would be the policy of the United States ‘to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet. In his defense of repeal the net neutrality rules, Mr. Verizon cannot ask Netflix to pay a fee to get their content to be delivered to consumers at higher speeds. It also means ISPs cannot create “fast lanes” for websites who can afford to pay more. ![]() For example, Comcast would not be allowed to block CBS’s streaming service because it competes with NBC, which Comcast owns. Net neutrality is the principle that those who provide Internet access (Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, such as Comcast and Verizon) have to treat all web traffic equally. Pai seems to be forgetting is that the Internet wasn’t broken in 2015 because the net has always been neutral, long before the 2015 regulation. ![]() “We weren’t living in a digital dystopia.” This is true. “The internet wasn’t broken in 2015,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. “The FCC just voted to restore the long-standing, bipartisan approach to protecting Internet freedom.” This was the official word from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Twitter account, announcing the repeal of the 2015 regulation codifying “net neutrality” into law. Devon Roberson, Law & Public Policy Scholar, JD anticipated May 2019 ![]()
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