Discuss the current state of net neutrality in the United States. Give a summary of FCC rulings during the last two years. Who were the key parties involved in the debate and what are the arguments on both sides of the issue? What did the most recent ruling by the FCC do to change the way Internet Service Providers may offer their services to customers?
Network Neutrality is that the people have equal access to internet, the resources and content. The current state in the United States has recently changed. In 2015, the challenges of net neutrality appeared to be resolved when the FCC accepted net neutrality with an Open internet order. This idea was “to make sure broadband networks brought online services to homes and offices fairly, and to grant access without degrading content by download speeds or bandwidth limitations. That order was challenged in court, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the FCC’s rule despite corporate challenges.43 “1 In 2017 the FCC’s opinion of net neutrality changed. They believed that the Open Internet Order was out of date. The FCC wanted to require Internet Service Providers to “divert resources to comply with unnecessary and broad new regulatory requirements” that would negatively affect consumers by taking away corporate investments. The FCC also wanted to cut mobile broadband from regulation and to restore the power of the FCC. He said that the rules were based on “hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom.”
This issue of net neutrality leads to a fight between the public and the FCC. Many Americans use the internet every day and it is clear why this would pose a problem to most. When the public learned about the possible change in net neutrality, there was an outbreak. Chairman Aijt Pai was working to make President Donald Trump happy, going back on the rules that were set in place back when Obama was president. 1 I remember when this was happening, I would get text messages from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media forms asking to support net neutrality. At the time I was a little confused as to what was going on, but I knew that many Americans were against the way that the Internet exist. They liked the regulations for making things equal for business. The change would make business in the internet world an even bigger tier system. Pai wanted to give opportunity for businesses to expand and become better and that the rules prevented that. Americans on the other side of things believed that changing net neutrality would. Pai said, “The United States is simply making a shift from pre-emptive regulation, which foolishly presumes that every last wireless company is an anti-competitive monopolist, to targeted enforcement based on actual market failure or anti-competitive conduct.”
In June of this year, the net neutrality rules were repealed. Equal access in web content was no longer. Blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization were no longer prohibited. This will change the internet dramatically. This means now that companies could charge a higher premium to stream or access certain content on the internet. Not only can there now be a bundled social media package, “consumers could suffer from pay-to-play deals. Without rules prohibiting paid prioritization, a fast lane could be occupied by big internet and media companies, as well as affluent households, while everyone else would be left in the slow lane.” This made many Americans upset as they feel like the new rules of the internet will not only create a bigger gap between small and big businesses, but also a gap between the average household and the higher tier. At this time, I have not experienced any changes in the way I use the internet, but I am curious to see how it is going to evolve.
