ILYAS SHAIKH

ATT, Verizon, Comcast win via Trump Administration. We need a Big Law Suit

Trump appointed FCC Chair will cancel Net Neutrality rules to help Major Internet Service Providers. Its not good for ordinary people and small businesses. Here is part of an article that explains why! The FCC rules adopted in 2015 explicitly forbid internet providers from the practice of paid prioritization, in which an ISP charges a company like Netflix to get faster speeds or more bandwidth than other services using the same pipe. For many small companies, the cost of doing so is prohibitive. On the other hand, large companies offering a similar service may gladly pay the fee to stifle their competition. Such practices become real threats if the current rules are scrapped. Many of these potential harms could be fixed in the free market if consumers voted with their wallets and abandoned the providers that give us a gated internet. Unfortunately, in practice we often can’t really do that. In most locations in the U.S., competition among broadband providers is poor, so we can’t easily switch to a provider that will give us better terms. It’s not like we’re going to cancel our internet subscriptions and swear off the web. That’s like someone in Flint, Michigan, cancelling his water service just to say, “I’ll show you.” The internet is critical infrastructure. So much of our daily lives depend on it. And that is why it is so important to ensure that it continues to work well for all participants, from consumers to ISPs to content providers. (By Jason Kornwitz)

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