Activism,  Technology,  USA

FCC Set To Strike Down Net Neutrality

The battle is now “ON” for the fight to keep Net Neutrality.

The FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is dead set to kill Net Neutrality. His statement is listed below and the link for the full document can be found here.

Ajit Pai: For almost twenty years, the Internet thrived under the light-touch regulatory approach
established by President Clinton and a Republican Congress. This bipartisan framework led the
private sector to invest $1.5 trillion building communications networks throughout the United
States. And it gave us an Internet economy that became the envy of the world.

But in 2015, the prior FCC bowed to pressure from President Obama. On a party-line vote, it
imposed heavy-handed, utility-style regulations upon the Internet. That decision was a mistake.
It’s depressed investment in building and expanding broadband networks and deterred innovation.

Today, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would abandon this failed approach
and return to the longstanding consensus that served consumers well for decades. Under my
proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet. Instead, the FCC would
simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers
can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can
have the technical information they need to innovate.

Additionally, as a result of my proposal, the Federal Trade Commission will once again be able
to police ISPs, protect consumers, and promote competition, just as it did before 2015. Notably,
my proposal will put the federal government’s most experienced privacy cop, the FTC, back on
the beat to protect consumers’ online privacy

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has issued a Fact Sheet; Understanding Chairman Pai’s Proposal to Dismantle Net Neutrality.

Prepared by the Office of FCC Commissioner Clyburn, November 22, 2017

What is Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is the concept that consumers and businesses should be able to reach the online
applications and services of their choosing without interference from their broadband provider.
In other words, that all data and all legal traffic that travels over the Internet should be treated
equally. This has been a bipartisan bedrock principle for more than a decade.

What is Commissioner Clyburn’s position on Net Neutrality?

Commissioner Clyburn has been an unwavering champion of robust, bright-line net neutrality
rules that protect consumers against the anti-consumer and anti-competitive practices of
broadband providers. The Commissioner continues to believe that the 2015 rules adopted by the
FCC are the best way to protect consumers and small businesses while promoting innovation.

Is it true that Chairman Pai’s proposal would eliminate Net Neutrality?

Yes. It eliminates all prohibitions against blocking and throttling (slowing down) applications by
broadband providers, and enables them to engage in paid prioritization and unreasonable
discrimination at the point of interconnection. It ignores thousands of consumer complaints and
millions of individual comments that ask the FCC to save net neutrality and uphold the principles
that all traffic should be created equal.

What does Chairman Pai’s proposal really do?

  • Increases uncertainty for consumers, ensuring that broadband providers could block or
    throttle at a whim.
  • Threatens innovation at the edge, by allowing broadband providers to charge tolls to
    access their customers.
  • Enables offerings that favor the vertically integrated broadband provider’s own content
    and services over those of consumers and innovators who rely on the Internet to grow
    their own businesses and stay informed.
  • Prevents states and localities from adopting any related consumer protections – an action
    that is likely unlawful.
  • Undoes the light-touch, court-approved Title II classification of broadband Internet
    access service that was modeled on the wildly-successful approach to mobile voice, and
    returns to an unregulated approach where broadband providers reign supreme and
    customers with complaints have no redress at the FCC.
  • Empowers a federal agency that has never enforced net neutrality protections (the FTC)
    to manage consumer complaints and ensures that there is no FCC recourse for wronged
    consumers or businesses.

GLOSSARY

The Office of Commissioner Clyburn provides this glossary to help decipher the jargon used in
Chairman Pai’s proposal to destroy net neutrality.

What do these terms really mean?

Costly and restrictive laws of a bygone era – The Communications Act of 1934, as amended.
Still in force. Has not been repealed or declared unconstitutional.

Cost-benefit analysis –Despite insufficient data and data to the contrary, the Chairman’s Order
draws conclusions by only accepting self-serving statements made by large broadband providers.
It makes no effort to verify these claims against the statements these very same companies have
made in filings before the Securities and Exchange Commission. See para. 301.

Government control of the Internet – Limited rules applying to the residential broadband
service delivered on a broadband providers’ own network. It does not include other services
offered by broadband providers nor does it include services offered by edge providers (e.g.,
Google, Facebook, or Netflix).

Heavy-handed regulation – Limited rules to protect consumers and competition that broadband
providers do not like. Synonym for “burdensome regulation.”

Market-based policies – Policies favoring little to no regulation for powerful broadband
providers.

Network innovation – The ability of broadband providers to charge more for service to both
sides of the two-sided market. See para. 250.

Utility-style regulation of the Internet – Enforceable requirements that broadband providers
act in a “just and reasonable” manner. Paradoxically, it does not involve any legal requirements
historically known as utility regulation. See “Government control of the Internet”; “Costly and
restrictive laws of a bygone era.”

Title II Order – 2015 Open Internet Order that was upheld in court last year.

Unnecessary and likely to inhibit innovation and competition – Not financially beneficial to
broadband providers.

Office of Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: (202) 418-2100
Twitter: @MClyburnFCC
www.fcc.gov


The FCC as an organization is not the “Bad Guy” here. You have a rogue Chairman of that agency, looking to benefit a particular part of an industry. The “Why” is not important, what it is time for is to fight, to engage, and to educate. The other item to keep in mind, is that the “Fact Sheet” was created by the FCC. Remember, we have friends everywhere, even if the leader of the organization is part of the enemy. 

Strive to do more, while you still can.

Mike Dodd

I have a wide range of views and opinions. I have worked in a number of industries some of them are: Banking, Dairy, Health Insurance, Education and Government. I am the owner and editor in charge of a number of websites and message boards. The crown jewel of the websites is WaveChronicle.com which covers a wide variety of content. The Wave Chronicle is a site built to put forth thought provoking information, which can range from activism, politics, technology, philosophy, climate change, education, futurist / transhumanist theory and some fun articles that tend to be on the conspiracy theory side. Finally, I am also an accomplished no limit holdem poker player who sadly does not see enough time at a poker table.

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