Network Neutrality

In separate phone interviews conducted last week, The Verge spoke with Federal Communications Commissioners Clyburn and Rosenworcel about this week’s vote, and what happens next.

Democrats are trying to pressure the Federal Communications Commission at the eleventh hour to call off its planned vote to scrap its net neutrality regulations. 39 senators sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to call off his “reckless” proposal to eliminate the Obama-era regulations.

Reps Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing their strong disappointment that the Chairman has failed to provide repeatedly requested documentation related to the alleged May 7 distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System. 

A trade group of broadband providers including AT&T and Comcast pledged recently to not block or slow web traffic and otherwise avoid “unfair discrimination against lawful traffic online,” according to a statement. The group, Broadband for America, also represents companies including the largest wireless carrier Verizon. Comcast changed the language about its web practices that is posted on a corporate page in late April, as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai was announcing his intention to gut the Obama-era rules.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s record is missing key evidence: over 50,000 Net Neutrality consumer complaints submitted to the FCC between 2015 and 2017.

An open internet provides a bedrock on which local news providers can build stable, accessible, and independent structures. Net Neutrality will not solve the problems facing local news. Doing so will require hard work and ingenuity from journalists, community members, entrepreneurs, and local governments. But net neutrality gives those actors the space to try and solve these problems. In a world without net neutrality, that space will shrink. 

A Q&A with Christopher Mitchell, director of Community Broadband Networks for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 

In an interview Dec 11 about the coming Federal Communications Commission vote over whether to repeal landmark network neutrality rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai took aim at a different group — the Web platforms themselves.

Video plays a growing role in the education of students who turn to videoconferencing, streaming lectures, and other forms of high-tech distance learning to complete or extend their educations. But the looming end of net neutrality could make life harder, or at least more expensive, for such students. 

[Commentary] I was lucky enough to see up close the excitement of fired-up startup founders building things that never existed before. I got inspired enough to leave behind a great job with healthcare and put my savings into building my dream. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s short-sighted plan will crush that dream for future would-be founders.