Quote:The FCC intends to use this new authority to ban "paid prioritization," a practice whereby Internet service providers can charge content producers a premium for giving users more reliable access to that content. The FCC also intends to ban blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. These regulations also apply to mobile access. More details about the plan are expected after vote.

"The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules," Wheeler said prior to the vote.

Tom Wheeler Wrote:The Internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform on the planet. It's simply too important to be left without rules and without a referee on the field. Think about it. The Internet has replaced the functions of the telephone and the post office. The Internet has redefined commerce, and as the outpouring from four million Americans has demonstrated, the Internet is the ultimate vehicle for free expression. The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.

So let's address an important issue head-on. This proposal has been described by one opponent as, quote, "a secret plan to regulate the Internet." Nonsense! This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech.

They both stand for the same concept: openness, expression, and an absence of gatekeepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think. The action that we take today is about the protection of Internet openness.

Quote:"The Obama Administration needs to get beyond its 1930s rotary-telephone mindset and embrace the future," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.

Ajit Pai Wrote:The order explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes.
Read my lips: More new taxes are coming. It's just a matter of when.

Wikipedia Wrote:Pai previously worked as a lawyer for Verizon Communications.

Karl Bode Wrote:In short, you've got a former Verizon regulatory lawyer claiming to represent the interests of everybody except the companies he's actually busy looking out for. Layered on to that is a media that pretends it's not just a little bit absurd that a living, breathing example of revolving door regulation is claiming to be a champion of the American public. Pai knows the rules will be approved on Thursday; he's just hoping his theatrical performance wins him a chance to lead the FCC (and the likely destruction of these very same rules) should we see a 2016 party shift.

Mike Masnick Wrote:Verizon promised that all homes and businesses would have access to 45Mbps symmetrical fiber by 2015. By 2004, the deal was that 50% of all homes were supposed to have that. In reality, 0% did, and some people started asking for their money back. That never happened, and it appeared that Verizon learned a valuable lesson: it can flat out lie to governments, promise 100% fiber coverage in exchange for subsidies, then not deliver, and no one will do a damn thing about it.

Mike Masnick Wrote:For the last decade, those same telcos have made promise after promise to local governments concerning the delivery of truly open fiber optic connections to the home. In exchange, they've been granted all sorts of privileges and rate increases by the government, costing all of us money. And where did the money go? Not towards what was promised.

FoxNews article on Ajit Pai Wrote:He warned of a litany of negative consequences, intended or not, from the net neutrality plan. He said it allows rate regulation -- and, ultimately, rates will go up and broadband service will slow.

Robert Cringely Wrote:Over the decade from 1994-2004 the major telephone companies profited from higher phone rates paid by all of us, accelerated depreciation on their networks, and direct tax credits an average of $2,000 per subscriber for which the companies delivered precisely nothing in terms of service to customers. That's $200 billion with nothing to be shown for it.
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The cost of providing digital services is always going DOWN, not up, so the telcos that might have been forced to cut rates instead offered to freeze them, locking in an effective multiyear rate increase.
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The RBOCs cut heads, cut spending, cut construction, increased depreciation rates, failed to deliver promised services, increased telephone bills, and had booming profits as a result.
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I could move to Japan and pay $14 per month for 100-megabit-per-second Internet service but I can't do that here and will probably never be able to.