Net Neutrality: Why it’s a big deal this week
By Aliah Fickling
The chairman of the FCC, a former Verizon lawyer, recently proposed to end the Net Neutrality Act, effective since 2015 under President Obama. The act was a godsend for all, as major internet providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon were banned from deliberately speeding up, slowing down or blocking traffic from specific websites and apps. This Thursday the FCC will vote whether or not to repeal the act, which could radically change the internet as we know it.
If Net Neutrality is repealed, internet providers will act as gatekeepers, limiting the public to what they can see or do on the internet and hindering smaller businesses who rely on an online presence. The internet will be separated into two tiers, giving priority to those who pay for premium service. The issue with this is that this model allows for discrimination among content sources and traffic. Larger companies like Amazon and Target will have no problem paying the premium for faster rates. However, smaller businesses and start-up companies may not be able to. Their customers may be forced to endure slower loading pages or blocked content, which could lead to their shopping, reading, streaming and downloading elsewhere...i.e. from bigger businesses who have the backing to handle the associated costs.
If there is content that providers like Comcast, ATT or Verizon do not want you to be able to access, they can make it very difficult or impossible to view, further bringing politics into play behind what you can watch, read, download or buy - In other words, the implications of this could be major.
A letter written to congress by world wide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Vint Cert, one of the "fathers of the internet stated, "The FCC's rushed and technically incorrect proposed order to abolish net neutrality protections without any replacement is an imminent threat to the Internet we worked so hard to create. It should be stopped."
With the holidays soon approaching, you'll probably do a little online shopping and expect what you've always experienced shopping online - browsing products quickly loaded on your screen from any source you'd like and purchasing them in minutes. If the repeal is approved, this may not be what future holiday internet shopping looks like. Luckily the agency will not be voting on the bill for a few more days, so you still have a little more time to freely browse and buy gifts for friends and family and to urge lawmakers to keep the bill in place.
For a list of numbers and emails to contact at the FCC, please click here. To contact congress, please click here.
