The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that it would add Internet and mobile services to Title II of the Communications Act. This is a huge victory for everyone, even if you’ve heard lobbyists say otherwise.
Basically, this adds Internet service to a list with other public utilities, like telephones, and prevents companies from adding fees for actually having quality service. It’s like a phone company charging you one rate for phone service and a higher rate for phone service that doesn’t drop calls.
During this long battle, there has been plenty of spin as to why Internet service providers should have multiple levels of service.
It makes sense in theory; after all, you already choose your service level when you sign up for Internet service. But their argument is so unbelievable, it’s easy to see that they’re just hired guns towing the company line.
The spin is that there will be one tier for fast service and another tier for really fast service, when in reality, we all know this to be unrealistic. What’s really going to happen is there will be one tier for regular service and one tier for slow service.
They sound like used-car salesmen who are trying to sell you on a concept of something you don’t need. Or in this case, it has the potential to do more harm than good.
During a feud with Netflix, Comcast throttled down bandwidth speeds for Netflix, causing low-quality rendering for consumers, which made Netflix look bad. This decision of net neutrality makes this practice illegal.
If it weren’t illegal, Comcast could demand more money from Netflix based on its popularity, knowing that they’ll pay it to keep their service running. It’s a mafia shakedown.
Even though the decision was good for our society, the battle probably isn’t over.
There are many within the government that have taken money from companies like Comcast, and they just happen to be against net neutrality despite that it’s in the best interest of the people. Coincidence? These billion-dollar companies probably won’t give up because of this decision.