Liberals who cheer the partisan FCC ruling should remember the decision when their own service is affected
Net neutrality ruling: What it means for you
The Federal Communications Committee voted Thursday to regulate the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, which currently applies to telephone service.
The ruling will enable the FCC to enact new rules that would prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from manipulating how quickly or slowly sites are transmitted along their networks, a huge win for proponents of net neutrality.
Despite the headline, CBS kinda forgot to actually explain. Which is unsurprising, since the actual plan was and still is secret.
President Obama issued a statement praising the decision, which he said “will protect innovation and create a level playing field for the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
Anytime anyone yammers on about a “level playing field” you know there will be huge numbers of burdensome rules, regulations, and control.
“Why are some companies so against it?” Cherry asked. “I can tell you why, because I used to work for them. It was a real coup in 2002 and 2005 when they got classification as information services. The deregulation gave them the freedom to essentially choose to whom, when, where and what service they’re going to bother to provide.”
Goodness! You mean private companies which spent huge sums of their operating income on developing infrastructure, services, products, apps, etc, would actually be able to run their business? How outrageous!
“This led to and can lead to incentives for unreasonable forms of discrimination. They want to make money every which way they can. That’s why they’ve resisted so heavily getting this Title II classification back.”
Oh, noes, money!!!!!! Profit!!!!!!
It could also affect consumers’ wallets. If, say,Netflix has to pony up money to make sure its video streaming looks seamless on your computer or smart TV, there’s a good chance those surcharges could end up increasing your monthly bill.
Here’s the thing: if a consumer is using way, way, way more bandwidth, is it unreasonable that they should actually pay more for it? Apparently, in Liberal World, the answer is “yes. Gimme!”
“If you let [Internet providers] control this you’re going to destroy the Internet,” Thompson told CBS News. “You’re going to destroy startups. It’s going to be much harder to create an Internet company. This is what American innovation thrives on. This is the part of our economy that is doing really well and if you give the [telecommunications companies] this control it will cut that off.”
Interestingly, despite the Internet providers having all this power over the years, the ‘net has thrived and grown. Some of you young whippersnappers might not remember, but if you go back even to the late 1990’s dial-up was still the primary source of Internet, with a max transmission speed of 52kbs. Few had any sort of broadband. Want to watch a cat video which is supposed to be funny? Start downloading, run out and get dinner. The utter explosion of web activity, speed, and companies preceded without the heavy hand of Government. You can now access the web on your phone at speeds that blow dial-up away, in under 20 years of big development. That’s no easy feat.
Money quote
“The decision is not radical in the sense that to do this legally is radical,” Cherry opined. “It’s undoing a prior radical decision. It’s momentous in terms of politically what it took to get here and the fact that a decision is coming out that is truly in the public interest as opposed to being in the interest of a relatively small number of companies that have a lot of resources to bring to bear.”
Got that? Leaving the operating decisions in the hands of companies and consumers, with very light government regulations, is “radical”.
Those who advocate for this “net neutrality” plan, which is still secret, should be careful about what they wish for: they just might get it.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Leaving The Internet Unfettered Is Apparently A “Radical Decision” »
