http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/FCC-s-net-neutrality-plan-a-win-for-startups-6063187.php
Go to https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/net-neutrality?subscribed=1&utm_source=newsletter-mofo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=netneutrality&utm_content=text&utm_term=4061537#get-involved to do your part.
The Federal Communications Commission's new Chairman Ajit Pai just announced a proposal to gut net neutrality. (May, 2017)
Net neutrality is the freedom to say, watch and make what we want online without interference from internet service providers. Two years ago, after hearing from nearly 4 million people urging it protect the open internet, the FCC passed rules protecting net neutrality.
Why should we protect net neutrality?
There are many reasons why we must protect net neutrality. Here are a few of them:
> Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the "First Amendment of the Internet."
> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. Without net neutrality, big Internet service providers can choose which services and content load quickly, and which move at a glacial pace. That means the big guys can afford to buy their way in, while the little guys don't stand a chance.
> Net neutrality is fundamental to innovation. Without net neutrality, creators and entrepreneurs could struggle to reach new users. Investment in new ideas would dry up, and the internet would start to look more and more like cable TV: a zillion channels and nothing on.
> Net neutrality is fundamental to a user choice. Without net neutrality, ISPs could decide you watched too many cat videos in one day and throttle your Internet speeds leaving you behind on the latest Maru memes.
By Joe Garofoli Updated 7:52 pm, Wednesday, February 4, 2015
WASHINGTON, DC FEBRUARY 04: Sen. Edward J. Markey (DMA) arrives to speak about net neutrality during a news conference on Capitol Hill, February 4. 2015 in Washington, DC. Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify the transmission component of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. to prevent broadband providers from creating Internet fast lanes for those who can pay and enforce open internet protections. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Consumers and tech startups stand to benefit most if the Federal Communications Commission regulates the Internet as a utility, a move the agency’s chairman proposed Wednesday.
But FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler doesn’t intend to govern the online world the way authorities oversee rate hikes at utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and the agency wouldn’t be monitoring your monthly Comcast or AT&T bill.
Instead, when the commission formally considers Wheeler’s proposal Feb. 26 to
reclassify high-speed Internet as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, analysts say the FCC will be starting a process where it will likely behave more as a protector of open access to the Internet, a concept commonly known as net neutrality.
In an essay in Wired magazine, Wheeler proposed barring Internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from charging for access to an online fast lane, also known as paid prioritization. He suggested forbidding service providers from blocking any website from consumers, as long as the content is legal, and banning providers from slowing down or speeding up access to certain content, a process referred to as “throttling.”
“My proposal assures the rights of Internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission,” Wheeler wrote.
Net neutrality has been an underlying principle of the Internet since its inception, allowing users equal access to the infrastructure behind the Web. That enabled several online companies to grow from startups into major operations that can suck up one- third of the Internet’s bandwidth during evenings. It also guaranteed Web users could load content at equal speeds across the Internet — even at sites owned by rivals of their service provider.
But net neutrality was called into question last year when a Washington, D.C., appeals court struck down FCC rules barring service providers from discriminating against individual websites. Netflix turned it into a political issue in June when it accused Verizon and other service providers of slowing its streaming video service. (Netflix later cut deals with Comcast and Verizon to guarantee its movies and TV shows reach viewers quickly, though those deals might not be necessary under the proposed classification.)
The FCC’s pending move to treat the Internet as a utility is “a huge win for consumers,” said James Tuthill, formerly Pacific Bell’s chief attorney for its matters before the FCC and who now teaches telecommunications law at UC Berkeley’s School of Law.
If service providers could charge for access to certain sites, those costs would trickle down to customers, he said.
The five-person federal commission, which includes two other Democrats beside
Wheeler, is expected to approve the proposal. It is similar to the net neutrality provisions that President Obama outlined in November. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are working on net-neutrality legislation that is more friendly to the telecommunications industry and would give less power to the FCC — a proposal that Obama would probably veto.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Rep. Barbara Lee, D- Oakland, praised Wheeler’s stance, and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, a member of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, called it “a triumph for the American consumer.”
But Tuthill and other analysts say Wheeler’s battle will not be on Capitol Hill but in the courts, as major telecoms are preparing to fight reclassification. Tuthill said it could be “minimum two years in the courts and it could be as many as five.”
In a company blog post this week, Hank Hultquist, a vice president of regulatory affairs for AT&T, foreshadowed such a legal throwdown “when the FCC has to defend reclassification before an appellate court ... those who oppose efforts at compromise because they assume Title II rests on bulletproof legal theories are only deceiving themselves.”
Leaders of service providers, like Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, have said that heavy-handed federal regulations would make them less likely to invest in upgrading infrastructure.
Wheeler was dubious about that Wednesday, pointing out that “over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition.”
While the legal battle gears up, tech entrepreneurs like Adam Mosam were breathing a sigh of relief Wednesday.
“This is amazing news,” Mosam said. His 3-year-old Orange County streaming-video company, Pivotshare, competes with the likes of YouTube — but doesn’t have YouTube’s deep pockets.
If a service provider wanted to charge Pivotshare more to get content to consumers, “The money has to come from somewhere,” Mosam said. That could mean higher charges to consumers or less money to content providers.
Net neutrality advocates — who include many progressive organizations that helped steer a record 4 million comments to the FCC on the issue — cautiously applauded Wheeler’s comments, but refrained from fully embracing them without more details.
Becky Bond, who has been at the forefront of this issue for a decade as political director for left-leaning telecom CREDO Mobile, praised Wheeler, but worried “about what will happen to the regulations once the telecom lobbyists start talking to people.”
“It’s not like the rules are the end of the story,” said Paul Goodman, legal counsel for the Greenlining Institute, which advocates for low-income people and communities of color. “Somebody still has to enforce them.”
Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
© 2015 Hearst Communications, Inc.