14 DAY TRIAL // Netflix has kept its promise and has taken its concerns about net neutrality to the Federal Communications Commission.
According to Reuters, after weeks of complaining about the possible death of net neutrality and the deal it was bullied into by Comcast (and now by Verizon), Netflix has taken the final step to make its worries official.
The video streaming company hasn’t been shy about its opinions regarding the Internet fast lane that ISPs seem to be adamant to create. In fact, it has been quite vocal about how it doesn’t believe that Internet providers should be allowed to charge both customers and content providers in order to deliver video and data to users.
Even though it has agreed, out of need, to pay such fees to Comcast and Verizon to make sure that its customers receive videos of proper quality and without any “hiccups,” Netflix believes that this goes against the principle of net neutrality, which states that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.
Netflix’s representatives took the company’s message over to the FCC as the agency continues to work on the Open Internet rules that regulate net neutrality.
In recent weeks, there’s been a lot of talk on this topic, as reports indicated that the FCC would allow the Internet companies to do exactly what Netflix feared it would – allow ISPs to charge companies that require more bandwidth, such as themselves and YouTube, for proper speeds.
The FCC’s Tom Wheeler has defended the plans, saying that nothing has been set in stone yet and that he won’t shy away from changing the status of the ISPs back to common carriers in order to gain enough power to be able to command them to follow net neutrality rules.
The current proposal indicates that the agency would allow some “commercially reasonable” deals, where the FCC would have the final say-so. Wheeler said that he would not tolerate moves that degraded the service for all for the benefit of a few.
The FCC is set to move on May 15 to formalize the proposed rules and Wheeler will even make an appearance in front of the Congress.
At the very least, the FCC is open to look at public comments, the chairman’s proposal and the perception on it, and consider what the right path to take is.
While many other companies have been unhappy with the changes, Netflix has been the only one to really fight for net neutrality.