Open Internet.
Title II.
Open Carrier laws.
Whatever you want to call it, it's a weird argument to have. Most of the USA and, indeed, much of the world think that the move of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to repeal the 2015 rules is just a stupid corporate power-grab. This decision overturns rules stating that internet service providers (ISPs) were not allowed to prioritize any traffic or source over any others. This prevents your ISP from charging special service fees to "make sure" your streamed video is sent at the fastest speed possible or that you stream with the Comcast App over the Hulu one. With the 2015 rules in place, they were prevented from artificially altering how fast data were transmitted because of any source, request, or quantity. Basically, they weren't allowed to mess with the data itself.
Before the 2015 rules, some glaring violations of consumer rights were (according to The Daily Dot):
- The 2004 blocking of Voice-over-IP services like Vonage by Madison River Communications (a regional ISP that's now a part of CenturyLink)
- The 2007 blocking of Pro-Choice fundraising through text messages by Verizon
- 2008 saw Verizon attempt to block tethering apps that allowed mobile device users to turn their devices into internet hotspots. Verizon went so far as to try to get Google to remove these apps from their app store. Verizon was charging users an extra fee, at the time, to allow tethering on their network and Google had apps to bypass their required fee. This is where things really got touchy. Verizon argued that they were within their rights to charge users an extra fee to allow their devices to transmit internet service to other devices. The FCC disagreed. The FCC argued that Verizon was not operating in good faith based on their deal to use certain radio frequencies and Verizon eventually settled and agreed to stop their tethering policies.
- In 2012, AT&T blocked Apple FaceTime unless people paid for unlimited voice and text services, a separate plan from most of their data services. AT&T backed off by late 2013, buckling under public pressure.
- Finally, Comcast had one of the worst examples of this. In 2008, they set a monthly data cap for users. However, they also offered a service, available only through the Xbox, that let people bypass this cap and stream video from their private network without counting toward the cap. Basically, "We can't handle the large amounts of data. But... if you want to pay us for this other thing, maybe we can come up with a way to handle a little extra. Just for you." It was basically an extortion racket. Comcast backed off, but a Comcast executive recently said they will probably set a monthly data cap on all customers by 2019. Time to look for a new ISP, yo.
If you want to learn more about this, you really need to listen to the interview of Tom Wheeler by Deray McKesson on Pod Save the People. (Side note, check out DeRay's other projects including work on OurStates.org). The interview starts at 31:23 or so.
I have to say that the move is... disheartening. It has been a dark year filled with many terrible moves made by a government that I have little positive feeling about.
I am heartened by little, when it comes to American society. There is one general good thing that I fall back on, though. Progress happens. Progress continues to happen. There may be setbacks, but
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."and
"Americans will always do the right thing — after exhausting all the alternatives."
