Why net neutrality is important

Regulators applied t he rules to wireless as well as wired broadband. They outlawed favoritism in the way ISPs receive transmissions from content providers, as well as in cable and phone company signals to their subscribers.

They also disclaimed authority to set rates. Q: Why did the FCC do that? A: I n January , the U. Court of Ap peals in D. J udges said that in and the FCC relinquished much of its authority to regulate Internet traffic. T he agency defined broadband as a lightly regulated information service governed by the Telecommunications Act.

They hoped that would entice investors to pay for infrastructure construction. If they wanted to impose net neutrality rules, justices said, then the FCC would have to redefine it as a common carrier governed by the Communications Act.

Q: What happens now? About a month after that happens, they will take effect. Q: What will opponents do? A: They likely will ask a court to grant a stay to stop that from happening. If so, then cable and phone opponents can try to have the rules overturned after they take effect, a process that could take years.

Without Net Neutrality, how would activists be able to fight against oppression? What would happen to social movements like the Movement for Black Lives? How would the next disruptive technology, business or company emerge if internet service providers only let incumbents succeed? After a decade-long battle over the future of the internet, the FCC adopted strong Net Neutrality rules based on Title II of the Communications Act, giving internet users the strongest protections possible.

But ever since then opponents have done everything they can to destroy Net Neutrality. And Chairman Pai — a former Verizon lawyer — is moving fast to destroy the open internet. He must be stopped. Big phone and cable companies and their lobbyists filed suit almost as soon as the Net Neutrality rules were adopted.

Free Press jumped in and helped argue the case defending the FCC — and on June 14, , a federal appeals court upheld the open-internet protections in all respects. However, the ISPS are still trying to challenge these rules in court.

Meanwhile, industry-funded Net Neutrality opponents in Congress have done everything they can to dismantle or undermine the rules. Legislators have introduced numerous deceptive bills and attached damaging riders to must-pass government-funding bills.

The 4 million people who spoke out in support of Net Neutrality in are fired up and ready to fight back — and you can join them here. Net Neutrality is crucial for small business owners, startups and entrepreneurs, who rely on the open internet to launch their businesses, create markets, advertise their products and services, and reach customers.

Second, consumers don't actually have that much choice. Despite the proliferation of ISPs across America, most home addresses only have one or two choices. This is particularly true for city residents, where apartment buildings often have just one service provider. Finally, no it won't. Net neutrality rules have been the subject of uncertainty and controversy for years.

In that grey area ISPs have already throttled access to video streaming sites several times in exchange for access fees from those companies. Report both cut Netflix's access to their subscribers until the company paid up. This is probably the central argument that critics of net neutrality have made.

Broadband services have long argued that the explosion of video streaming and online gaming has made it more expensive to provide internet access. Consumers simply need more bandwidth than ever before, and that demand is growing. Ending net neutrality will allow these companies to experiment, innovate and raise the money to expand their networks. There are several problems with this position. It first and foremost acknowledges that ending net neutrality will lead to higher costs for the consumer somewhere along the line.

Everything else about it is simply untrue. While internet service providers have been slow to upgrade legacy networks across the U. This is a healthy market with the money to spend on innovation if they had a business incentive to do so. One of the challenges with net neutrality as an issue is that almost every argument against it has been made in manifestly bad faith.

This makes it difficult to present an even-handed case on this subject… because there isn't one. Under the Obama administration the FCC passed several regulations making net neutrality a requirement for internet service providers. Pai, the current Chairman, has spearheaded a move to roll those regulations back.

As noted above, this almost immediately led several ISPs to begin throttling access to major video streaming sites. The most significant legal question on net neutrality is what's known as "common carriage laws. American law inherited from the British an idea called common carriage, which says that the public always has a fundamental right of equal access to public roads and waterways. Under common carriage you can set up toll roads and ferries, but only on an egalitarian basis.

Everyone gets equal access, and if it's for pay, each person pays the same. Later on, Congress expanded this idea to include wire services such as telephones, as they run their lines along or under public rights of way. The public has the right to full and equal access to anything governed under common carriage law. If broadband Internet cables count as public rights of way as telephone lines do , then the FCC could regulate them. In fact it might have to.

In Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of in which it divided the market into two categories: "telecommunications services" and "information services providers.

For example, your telephone company actually doesn't create information, it just conveys your conversation from point A to point B. Accordingly, telecommunication services are subject to common carrier laws while information service providers are not. While the current FCC has made clear that it has no interest in regulating ISP practices, the common carriage debate is essential to knowing if future administrations can do so.

Broadband companies argue that they are information services providers, and so not subject to the FCC's oversight. Net neutrality advocates urge that ISPs should be classified as telecommunications services and regulated according to the same laws that govern all private utilities.