14 DAY TRIAL // It’s been months since net neutrality was on its death bed in the United States and just as long since the FCC was waiting to decide whether it wanted to bring it back to life or let it pass away.
According to the Wall Street Journal, regulators are about to propose new rules regarding Internet traffic that would allow broadband providers to charge companies for premium access to the fastest lanes, similarly to what Netflix had to agree to with Comcast recently.
This means that net neutrality is about halfway to the grave since the entire principle involves offering everyone, including companies, the same treatment with no exception. By allowing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to charge content providers for more bandwidth, the principle is broken.
On the other hand, the proposal that was reportedly created by the FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler would also prevent ISPs from blocking or slowing down individual websites. Basically, consumers should be able to access whatever content they want to, but the one chosen by the ISP.
As a reminder, Netflix only agreed to sign a deal with Comcast to get access to its Internet fast lane after months during which users were reporting considerable drops in connection speeds.
The FCC would be the one responsible for deciding whether the deals between content providers and ISPs are “commercially reasonable.” Each case should be analyzed individually.
Back in January, a federal court in the United States ruled that the FCC could not impose net neutrality rules and could not prevent service providers from prioritizing certain types of content. This happened because several years ago, the FCC dubbed ISPs as “information service providers,” rather than “telecommunications carriers,” failing to see that Internet access would become a simple utility.
Voices supporting net neutrality have argued that the FCC doesn’t even have to go to court to fight against the judge’s ruling. Instead, all the Federal Communication Commission would have to do is change the legal status of ISPs to common carriers. This would give the FCC the necessary reach to force companies to respect net neutrality.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the FCC will circulate the proposal on Thursday when it will also have to vote on whether or not to go forward with it until a final May 15 meeting.
The White House has shown support for net neutrality and this particular principle was actually a key element of Obama’s campaign back in 2008. Adopting such a proposal wouldn’t help anyone but the major broadband providers.