The Federal Communications Commission voted today to regulate broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. In ordinary speak, this is Net Neutrality. It eliminates threats of a multi-tiered system, where certain bandwidth costs more than other bandwidth depending on what you want to access.
The actual rules will be published in the near future, but the impact is a good one for anyone who has, or is wanting to start, a site on the internet. Your site will remain as accessible as all others.
The FCC also voted on municipal broadband, saying that states couldn’t pass laws preventing municipalities from improving their broadband infrastructures. This allows for a new era of competition, as municipalities can offer comparable or superior services to those offered by the handful of large telecom providers.
Brattleboro is well-positioned, if it so chose, to take advantage of this second ruling. The town is on the internet backbone. The highest speeds aren’t far away from most residents; the infrastructure isn’t there for everyone to currently access it.
Townspeople are often looking for new sources of revenue, and providing municipal broadband could be a productive and useful income stream if implemented well. High speed internet access at a low cost is attractive to businesses, too.
Providing high speed internet access to everyone in town could lead to other opportunities, such as electronic polling on key town issues in real-time at selectboard meetings, or electronic town meetings via town-wide videoconferencing.
Would we like to invest in this and have a fully-connected town? The new laws allow us to take full control ourselves, or to partner as we see fit. Lessons have been learned elsewhere, too, so the wheel need not be re-invented.
Perhaps the maker community could advocate for this sort of future?
not so fast says House
And the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee plans to try to block it:
“”We will not stand by idly as the White House, using the FCC, attempts to advance rules that imperil the future of the Internet. We plan to support and urge our colleagues to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving the “Open Internet” rules. Not only will such a resolution nullify the ‘Open Internet’ rules, the resolution will prevent the FCC from relying on Title II for any future net neutrality rules unless Congress explicitly instructs the FCC to take such action.”
It would, of course, be vetoed.
Be careful what you wish for.
Another major rule passed before anyone knows fully what is in it! We were told the positive highlights, I can only imagine what the devil in the details are? Free anything may become a thing of the past! Hello I’m from the government and I’m here to help, yikes!’
Imagine
It could be quite bad if you own a monopolistic internet service providing company and want to set different prices for different access. One will, alas, have to treat everyone the same.
No one will, for example, be able to charge extra for access to information from conservative sites, even if they spread misinformation on a regular basis.
Seriously though, this will make sure you have access to those free sites. And that the little guy can continue to create sites without being priced out of the picture. There will be no extra fees for special access.