Millions of Internet users are more important than a handful of greedy companies seeking to drain money from everyone

Nov 11, 2014 21:57 GMT  ·  By

The battle for Net neutrality is more or less won now that US president Barack Obama stepped in and told the FCC just what expectations he has out of the new guidelines and that’s great. The sad part is that it took Obama telling the FCC to listen to what some 4 million people had to say for the Commission to listen up.

Even now, it’s not 100 percent that the FCC will obey, but chances are slim that they’ll go against what is equal to a direct order from the White House.

It took many, many months, but Obama has finally decided to step up and tell the FCC what needs to be done. The move comes after the FCC has been delaying things, coming up with crappy plans just to keep the ISPs happy.

FCC wanted to protect ISPs, not Net Neutrality

First it was an effort to allow ISPs to charge companies for prioritized access to the network, to a so-called fast lane that doesn’t even exist. This would have allowed ISPs to basically dictate what sites people should check out and what services to use. Of course, in the case of Comcast, who practically owns Hulu, it didn’t come as a surprise when it throttled with the speeds of Netflix.

However, this situation had the chance to become a common occurrence had the measures been adopted.

Thankfully, millions of people told the FCC that this was unacceptable, asked them to just go ahead and use Title II to reclassify the ISPs as common carriers, gaining total control over them and protecting net neutrality.

The FCC mulled things over and since ISPs kept lobbying, it put together a new plan, a hybrid strategy. ISPs would be largely unregulated when it comes to the relationship they have with customers, but the backend would get reclassified. Even so, they would still be allowed to create deals with various companies and services, but they’d have to be approved by the FCC first.

The final straw

The continuous efforts to appease ISPs have ticked off a lot of people, advocates for net neutrality, who took to the streets once more. Tom Wheeler’s past job as lobbyist for the very same ISPs he now has to regulate has never been more obvious than through his plans to only marginally protect Net neutrality.

To make sure that things were as clear as possible, Obama’s lengthy statement enumerated various things that the FCC needs to include in the new guidelines. On top of this, he told them to implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.

This means that even Obama wants the FCC to just use Title II and reclassify ISPs since it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way for these companies to protect the Open Internet rather than their financial interests.

“To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies,” Obama said in his statement.

Expanding protection to mobile broadband

The fact that Obama took things one step further and told the FCC that these rules should also be applicable to mobile broadband as well is also meaningful since it pushes the Commission to take another decision that it has been dodging. So far, telcos have largely done whatever they wanted in this area.

Most recently, they were slapped on the hand for planning to throttle the speeds of people with unlimited plans that were hogging the network.

Net Neutrality advocates are rejoicing, calling this the ultimate step that will win the battle they believed to be lost up until Obama’s statement. The United States is lagging behind when it comes to protecting Net Neutrality, just as it’s lagging behind when it comes to the Internet speeds they are getting, which are lousy compared to how much data plans cost.

Focusing on the users’ interests and not on those of these corporations will certainly make a change when it comes to American broadband. The question, of course, is in which direction things will go from here on out.