Why Google and the FCC are bringing wireless back into the net neutrality fight

Federal Communications Commission Tom Wheeler and Google both seemed to come out in favor of holding wireless internet to the same network neutrality standards we hold the wired internet. This has long been the goal of net neutrality advocates. What’s changed?

When the 2010 debate over network neutrality was raging, less than 30 percent of Americans had a smartphone, and they were using them very differently than they are using them now. During 2010, people in the US consumed an average of 350 MB/mo of data per month compared to 2013, when shared data plans and more devices helped push data consumption to 1.2GB per month. Plus if more than 20 percent of visits to the internet are coming from mobile phones, a significant amount of eyeballs access the net via wireless networks, which means that any unfair deals would affect one in five attempts to get online. And then there are the people themselves, who are changing how politicians view the debate. Thanks to John Oliver’s rant, the average consumer is far more engaged in the network neutrality debate than they were in 2010, and has told the FCC and her Congressmen what she thinks.