14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet Slowdown Day is underway and dozens of sites have joined the campaign, adding an ever-loading icon to their homepages, showing visitors just how it would be if net neutrality didn’t exist.
Netflix, Reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, Vimeo, Foursquare, Etsy and many others, including Softpedia, have joined in the cause, urging everyone to stand up for net neutrality.
The September 10 protest features, as you may have noticed already, a revolving icon which symbolizes the sluggish Internet speeds people would encounter when visiting some sites. This is meant to illustrate just how losing net neutrality would harm many online services that don’t have deep enough pockets to pay off the Internet Service Providers.
The dreaded fast lanes
The FCC has been looking into the issue for many months now, ever since a court told the commission that it has no legal power to enforce net neutrality principles on ISPs. This left the members of the FCC looking for an alternative.
Tom Wheeler, the chairman, came up with the idea of allowing the very thing that ISPs were lobbying for – the creation of fast-lanes. Companies that require a lot of bandwidth, like Netflix and YouTube and many others would have to pay ISPs to have access to these lanes.
The issue, however, is the fact that the telcos don’t intend to do any network improvements, but rather to create the fast lanes on the current infrastructure. This means that these companies would get actual access to the full speeds, while the rest would get slowed down to justify the “access fee.”
“Not to worry, the icon you are seeing today will not actually slow down your internet service. But it is there to warn Web visitors of what world's cyberspace could be like if Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were allowed to charge more for faster access,” Fight for the Future explained.
Over a million people told the FCC that they want to see net neutrality principles enforced on the Internet, as well as plenty of companies and NGOs protecting various rights.
The FCC is gearing up for a series of debates before coming up with a final solution. Chances are that all the opinions in favor of net neutrality and against the fast lanes plan will actually matter and the FCC will take into consideration the alternative – which is using Title II to change the ISPs’ status to “common carrier.”
Additional protests are planned in New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, between September 15 and 18.