UPDATE (July 15, 2:38 PM PST): The FCC has extended the comment period until midnight, July 18th as a result of overwheling traffic.
UNITED STATES - The deadline for the first round of comments to the FCC regarding the fate of net neutrality ends today, July 15th. This is our chance as an industry to ensure that our voice is heard for maintaining an open and equal Internet for the future. If we don’t submit our comments now, our access to websites we know and love, including AndNowUKnow, could be severely hindered by new net neutrality rules proposed by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.
Simply put, we need to make sure the Internet stays a level playing field for all companies on the web. Here are three dangers of the new net neutrality rules…and why you should get involved now.
1) Lessened competition: Bigger companies can simply pay Internet Service Providers (ISPs) more to ensure you get their content as fast as possible, while small, start-up companies would struggle to maintain traffic. Google, Facebook, or Amazon wouldn’t be where they’re at today without net neutrality.
2) Loss of access to frequently visited websites: Your connection could degrade to the point where you need to pay more just to get access to websites you frequently visit. Visiting those websites becomes a privilege, rather than a right.
3) Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s Potentially Dangerous Merger: If Comcast and Time Warner’s multi-billion dollar merger is approved, Comcast would gain control of a third of the U.S. broadband market, according to International Business Times. Comcast is still bound by net neutrality, but this condition will expire after 2018 if the merger is approved. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has gone on record to say that the merged entity would “possess even more anti-competitive leverage to charge arbitrary interconnection tolls for access to their customers.”
In a nutshell, the new proposed net neutrality rules can significantly change the way we access frequently visited websites. The new rules give your ISP the right to regulate when and how fast you receive content from certain websites. For example, if you want to watch a video on YouTube, your ISP can deliberately slow down or block your connection to the website. You would be forced to either find a different content provider or potentially even change your ISP – which, in some cases, is not always possible depending on your location. Since YouTube still wants your traffic though, it would be coerced into paying your ISP more money just to ensure that your connection to the website remains stable and reliable. At the end of the day, you’re paying more just to get the service you already expected.
Dozens of the world’s largest Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Ebay, and Yahoo, have already submitted their comments and concerns to Wheeler proposing that the FCC should “take the necessary steps to ensure that the Internet remains an open platform for speech and commerce so that America continues to lead the world in technology markets.” Let’s follow in their footsteps.
As of July 11, Wheeler says that the FCC has received about 647,000 Net Neutrality comments. Let’s keep them coming.
For more information on net neutrality, you can visit the following websites...
