In an expected 3-2 party line vote, the FCC has voted to end Net Neutrality…
Well, this was disappointing; but not unexpected…
Today, the United States Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to repeal the Obama-era internet regulations aimed at insuring that the internet didn’t have pay to access lanes for consumer oriented content. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai cast the landmark tying breaking vote, providing ISP’s like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon the power to control what content consumers can access.
Many different groups, including Democrats, many movie studios and companies like Google owner Alphabet and Facebook had urged the FCC to keep the content neutral rules barring service providers from blocking or slowing access to content. Pai is a Republican, appointed by President Donald Trump.
Consumer advocates and trade groups representing content providers have planned to launch a legal challenge, aimed at preserving those rules. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, said in a statement he will lead a multi-state lawsuit to challenge the reversal. He called the vote “a blow to New York consumers, and to everyone who cares about a free and open internet.” ‘
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, also a Democrat, said prior to the vote that Republicans were “handing the keys to the Internet” to a “handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.”
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has argued that the 2015 rules were heavy handed, stifled competition and [limited] innovation among service providers, “The internet wasn’t broken in 2015. We weren’t living in a digital dystopia. To the contrary, the internet is perhaps the one thing in American society we can all agree has been a stunning success,” he said on Thursday.
The problem that he is refusing to lend credibility to, however, is that service providers like AT&T, Comcast (Xfinity) and Verizon have CLEARLY indicated, that they want consumers to use THEIR content networks and will institute pay for performance (speed) premiums against competing services like Netflix and Hulu (as well as others). Those premiums will ultimately be passed down to individual consumers and users.
Internet access with speeds suitable for streaming and general computing and browsing at the same time for many is already very expensive. With the focus shifting to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and to streaming boxes like AppleTV and Roku, or an Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV Stick, having affordable, non-taxed, high speed bandwidth available is probably one of the more important services you have coming into your home today.
That service is going to provide all of your TV service in the near future, if not now (if you’ve cut the cord). Its very clear to me that having an ISP free of neutrality restrictions is going to lead to additional charges and fees being passed on to the consumer.
At the end of the day – and this is very frustrating – no one has any idea yet of just what and how the removal of the Obama-era Net Neutrality rules will mean to consumer delivered ISP and consumer content services. However, its at least understood that there are likely fees and surcharges coming in a play to “play” scenario that is expected to be passed on to the end user.
Its this anticipated pay to “play” tax that most are concerned with, especially end users. Its clear that ISP’s like Comcast, who owns NBC and its related assets may give preferential bandwidth to their own content and make competitors like Netflix and Applet pay a surcharge or tax to insure that their services stream with the same bandwidth priority over Comcast’s backbone. This is where most of the consumer concern comes from.
What do you think is going to happen with Net Neutrality? Is the removal of the 2015 Obama-era rules a problem? Did they restrict competition or protect consumer interests? Is the internet freer now than it was before, or is the internet just more expensive to use now? Do you believe that the larger regional or national ISP’s will take advantage of this new development and begin charging clients surcharges or fees for accessing competing or different streaming services other than the ones they already partner with or are different from their own offerings?
Why don’t you meet me in the Discussion area below and give me your thoughts?
The post The Day the Internet Died appeared first on Soft32 Blog.
In an expected 3-2 party line vote, the FCC has voted to end Net Neutrality… Well, this was disappointing; but not unexpected… Today, the United States Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to repeal the Obama-era internet regulations aimed at insuring that the internet didn’t have pay to access lanes for consumer oriented […]
The post The Day the Internet Died appeared first on Soft32 Blog.
2018-01-15T11:44:33.000Z[Collection]https://www.soft32.com/blog/platforms/web/day-internet-died/#respond
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