Network Neutrality

Sen Maggie Hassan (D-NH) led 27 of her colleagues in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, expressing concern over reports that bots filed hundreds of thousands of comments to the FCC during the network neutrality policymaking process and calling on the Chairman to delay the planned December 14th vote to roll back net neutrality rules until an investigation of the state of the record is conducted.

One of the main fears that school officials have about curtailing “net neutrality” is that internet service companies will have new powers to throttle or block the flow of online content that serves as academic lifeblood for many districts. But gauging whether those worries are justified or overblown requires a lot of speculation about industry behavior, and how it would apply to schools. Chris Lewis, a vice president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, said dire scenarios envisioned by some school officials are not unrealistic.

Charter Communications is really excited to tell you about all its new broadband network investments. "Increasing Flagship Broadband Speeds; Giving Customers More For Less," is the title of the company's latest announcement on this topic.

Religious groups are calling on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai not to eliminate the bright-line network neutrality rules, which he has proposed doing at the FCC's Dec. 14 public meeting. That came in a Dec 4 letter from, among others, the National Council of Churches, the Islamic Society of North America and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Benton Foundation joined Public Knowledge and 40 other consumer protection groups, digital divide advocates, and local government agencies -- including New York City -- in a letter urging Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to delay the vote on the “Restoring Internet Freedom” Draft Order, which would roll back the agency’s net neutrality rules if adopted. Specifically, the groups propose the FCC delay the vote until a pending court case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit -- the en banc review in Federal Trade Commission v.

If you heard that the Federal Communications Commission received a staggering 21.7 million comments during its open comment period on its forthcoming net neutrality ruling, you might assume this phenomenon represented democracy in action. But in reality, those 21.7 million comments represent a new challenge to democracy — specifically to the way we register what actually counts as an opinion. The FCC made clear that it would be dismissing most of the 21.7 million comments submitted to its website as part of the open comment period on its planned repeal of net neutrality laws.

AT&T recently said  the company has never blocked third-party applications and that it won't do so even after the rules are gone. Just one problem: the company fails to mention that AT&T blocked Apple's FaceTime video chat application on iPhones in 2012 and 2013. AT&T blocked FaceTime on its cellular network when users tried to access the application from certain data plans, such as unlimited data packages.

Comcast is defending its changed net neutrality pledges in the face of criticism from Internet users. The deletion of a net neutrality promise immediately after the Federal Communications Commission started repealing its net neutrality rules is just a "language" change, the company says.

Voters know Republicans in Congress are the only ones who can stop Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.  If enough Republicans tell Chairman Pai to stop, he will likely back down. After all, Congressional pressure has stopped the FCC before. Members of Congress face a choice: They can side with their constituents, who overwhelmingly want them to defend the greatest communication and innovation platform ever invented, or support one of the most blatant anti-consumer corporate giveaways in modern history.

First, the Department of Justice sued to block AT&T's proposed $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The next day, the Federal Communications Commission unveiled a proposal to loosen the limits on the number of television and radio stations a broadcast company can own, the latest in a series of moves that pave the way for Sinclair Broadcasting's proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Company. The same week, the FCC unveiled its plan to overturn net-neutrality rules that ban broadband providers, including AT&T, from blocking or discriminating against legal content.