AotG TKF Net Neutrality: Round Two

By: 
Travis Fischer

It's time again for that semi-regular reminder of what Net Neutrality is and why it's important.
You may have noticed Net Neutrality being mentioned a lot last week. That's because the FCC is working towards rolling back the Title II classification that protects businesses and consumers from being selectively exploited by internet providers.
Internet service providers (ISP) have spent a lot of money lobbying to rid themselves of those pesky consumer protections and they now have a powerful advocate in FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.
Pai opposed the initial reclassification of the Internet as a public utility and since becoming chairman of the FCC has started steps towards reverting that classification.
So, here we go again.
At the most basic level, Net Neutrality is the idea that the content of data running across the internet is none of your ISP's business as far as pricing goes. Whether you're streaming Netflix, e-mailing co-workers, or posting on a message board about collectible miniature airplanes, all data is treated equally when it comes to how fast it travels across our infamous series of tubes.
Internet providers would very much like to change this policy, which would give them the ability to offer "fast lanes," which essentially means throttling down the speed of any sites that refuse to pay extra for the service they are already paying for.
Internet providers have been appropriately villainized for their attempts at stripping away net neutrality protections outright. For instance, once upon a time Comcast customers found that they could no longer stream Netflix at a watchable quality, a problem that persisted until Netflix agreed to pay Comcast a big sum of money, at which point the problem abruptly went away.
Those antics may have been effective, but they also highlighted the importance of Net Neutrality and galvanized people into supporting it.
Nowadays internet providers are using more indirect methods to ease people into the concept of letting them pick and choose which services get preferential treatment. AT&T resorted to downright trickery, feigning support for Net Neutrality while telling customers to send Congress a carefully worded message that means the opposite.
On the mobile side of the industry, which doesn't have Net Neutrality protections, T-Mobile's "Binge On" service offers the ability for mobile customers to stream unlimited amounts of YouTube, Netflix and HBO without it going against their data cap. That sure sounds like a great deal… unless you're one of their competitors. How are up-and-coming competitors supposed to compete with the established giants of the industry when T-Mobile is actively encouraging their users to use one service over another?
And that's without even considering the potential for conflicts of interest. Comcast Corporation doesn't just provide internet service to a good portion of the country. They also own several television networks and content providers.
Without Net Neutrality, there's nothing stopping Comcast from putting the breaks on any content that competes with their in-house content.
Well, that's not entirely true. Such a blatant abuse of their position would certainly result in a publicity backlash and what internet provider could possibly survive with such a bad reputation?
Oh wait, all of them. Internet providers are the only companies that rate lower than airlines when it comes to customer dissatisfaction. Thanks to their oligopoly, internet service providers don't compete with each other to offer the best service possible. They merely have to be "better than nothing." That is the standard of quality that their business model is based on and opponents of Net Neutrality want to lower that bar even further.
At best, eliminating Net Neutrality allows ISPs to collaborate with media giants to further cement their dominance in their respective marketplaces. At worst, it forces everybody, giants and little guys alike, to bend the knee and pay extra for the service they are already supposed to be providing.
These practices benefit no one but internet providers, allowing them to create what is essentially a protection racket.
"Nice online business you've got here. Sure would be a shame if our customers, who don't have any other legitimate options for internet service, couldn't access your website."
This puts an additional barrier of entry in front of any prospective online business and it creates additional expenses that ultimately get passed on to the consumer. Stripping away Title II classification gives companies already notorious for abusing their position as an effective monopoly yet another avenue to abuse that position.
This isn't just putting the fox in charge of the hen house. This is putting the fox in charge of the hen house and saying, "Okay… go do what we both know you're going to do."
The good news is that nearly everybody who isn't financially tied to internet service providers is for Net Neutrality. Major tech firms overwhelmingly support net neutrality rules and the FCC has been flooded with feedback strongly urging them to keep the internet classified as Title II. The FCC fielded two million comments supporting Net Neutrality just last week.
The bad news is that Ajit Pai is not among those people and is likely to ignore the feedback of basically everybody who doesn't receive checks from Time-Warner and Comcast.
It's hard to say where things will go from here, but it's likely to get worse before it gets better.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and prefers his hen houses fox free.

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