Thursday, May 15, 2014

Net Neutrality

This is what the chairman of the FCC said, "There is one Internet. It must be fast, it must be robust, and it must be open," Wheeler said. "The prospect of a gatekeeper choosing winners and losers on the Internet is unacceptable.", after approving the provisional rules to abandon net neutrality for a tiered system for the big companies (Netflix, etc.) to stream content at higher speeds and volumes.

The rules are written, according to the FCC chair, to encourage the industry to build a better, faster Internet communications system to accommodate all the new streaming and traffic from the new rules, but didn't put any provisions in the rules to force the improvements. They're voluntary, as he said, so they don't burden the consumer being victim to the new traffic with no improvements.

In other words, the industry doesn't have to do anything, they can simply add the higher speeds on top of the existing system and if it forces the other traffic to slower speeds, so be it, unless of course, they want to pay for the improvements to sustain the speeds and traffic they already have. That's the point, advantage industry, more money from basic service customers to benefit the high volume customers.

And the rules are also written so the industry polices itself and consumer can't file complaint until they have proof after any violations to reduce speeds, raise cost "unreasonably" for the same service, etc. In other words, the FCC, the chair being a former industry lobbyist appointed by President Obama, remember his promise of net neutrality, is giving the industry what it wants while we paid the costs.

The rules will be open to a 120 day comment period by the public, and I have no doubt the FCC will hear from the public, but what we want to hear is from the President why he appointed an industry lobbyist the FCC chair and hasn't said anything against the new rules when he promised net neutrality, or maybe he has a different definition that the American people.

Gee thanks Mr. President for representing the people and promising net neutrality. Yeah, you're right,  it's a joke, on us.

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