Tag: Net neutrality

Net giants urge court to reinstate repealed net neutrality rules

Representatives of internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon on Monday urged a federal appeals court to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. Net neutrality rules, ideally prohibited internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing most web traffic. The FCC officially repealed in June causing a huge outrcry. The Internet Association (IA) and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent trade groups, filed in support of a lawsuit against the FCC for its repeal of the 2015 regulations late last year.…

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Net Neutrality is Finally Dead and there is Little to Expect

Dianne Jacobs

After months of delays, the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality finally took effect yesterday. But if you’re expecting broadband providers to suddenly feast on their customers and institute every now-legal impediment they can on free expression, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. What comes next isn’t internet hell but legal purgatory. First, the technical aspect of things: Restoring Internet Freedom, the FCC rule that officially does away with 2015’s Open Internet Order, was proposed last April, finalized in November, passed in December, entered into the Federal Register in February, approved by…

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Global Tech Websites unite to save Net Neutrality

Dianne Jacobs

Net neutrality is a principle about fairness on the Internet. It holds that no ISP should be able to unfairly manipulate your Internet usage or your experience of the Web, particularly in ways that harm other businesses. It means that ISPs don’t get to choose which data is sent more quickly, and which sites get blocked or throttled and who has to pay extra. About 200 internet companies and activist groups are coming together today to mobilize their users into opposing US government plans to scrap net neutrality protection. Facebook,…

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Netflix caught secretly throttling traffic on AT&T and Verizon for the past 5 years

Staff Writer
A message Netflix gave Verizon home Internet customers during a money dispute in 2014.

The Wall Street Journal last week confirmed a researcher’s findings that the video giant had been secretly throttling traffic reducing the default bitrate to 600kbps in order to help users stay under their data caps on Verizon and AT&T’s mobile networks, and has been doing so for the last five years.  The practice does not extend to Sprint or T-Mobile , who Netflix feels are more “consumer friendly.” Netflix’s admission comes only a week after T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said that AT&T and Verizon deliver Netflix video at a resolution of…

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WashingtonPost: Why Obama’s plan to save the Internet could actually ruin it

On Monday, President Obama joined the chorus of those urging FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to inject federal and state regulators directly into the heart of the Internet, “reclassifying” wired and mobile broadband ISPs as public utilities under a 1934 law written to control the former Bell telephone monopoly. While Obama has long supported the notoriously slippery idea of “net neutrality,” this is the first time the White House has explicitly asked the FCC to take specific action, let alone to embrace the most radical and legally uncertain approach being considered…

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US President Obama Reiterates His Support for Net Neutrality

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

President Obama said late Thursday that he was “unequivocally committed” to net neutrality and firmly opposed to any proposal that would let companies buy an Internet fast lane to deliver their content more quickly to consumers. The statements, at a town-hall meeting in Santa Monica, Calif., on innovation, gave a strong signal to Mr. Obama’s Democratic appointees on the Federal Communications Commission that he wants them to heed the overwhelming public sentiment expressed in 3.7 million comments sent to the commission in recent months concerning a set of rules proposed…

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House Subcommittee Hearing to Address Global Internet Governance

Staff Writer

The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will kick off the new Congress with a joint hearing Feb. 5 on how U.S. policy can keep the global Internet free from international regulation. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the subcommittee, laid out his agenda this morning covering everything from wireless spectrum policy to reform of the Federal Communications Commission. source

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