Internet Access and Net Neutrality: What You Need to Know

AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson has called on a politically-divided Congress to pass legislation supporting net neutrality, arguing that certain basic principles should be made into law to protect consumers.

“I get fatigued every time the President changes, the head of the FCC changes, and regulations swing from left to right,” Stephenson said Monday at The Wall Street Journal D.Live conference in Laguna Beach, California.

"I'd love to see legislation, not regulation,” he said, noting that companies should not be able to block certain types of content or throttle users. Stephenson said consumers should also be able to connect any device to the internet without interference and know how their data is being used.

Restoring net neutrality

The FCC’s Obama-era net neutrality rules required all internet traffic to be treated the same. Under the Trump Administration, the agency rolled back those regulations.

In September, California’s Senate voted to restore the 2015 open-Internet rules. The following month, the Justice Department sued the state seeking to prevent the law from taking effect, saying states can’t regulate the internet.

Stephenson joked that Congress actually implementing his proposed net neutrality legislation would be a long shot, as the lawmakers “can’t agree on the freezing temperature of water.” Still, he argued that there should be "legislation around customer data protection."

"We've got a mess coming at us, literally states independently going out and designing their own privacy regulation," Stephenson said. "How do you do business in a world where you have 50 different regulations and rules around privacy?"

“What would be at total disaster for the innovation we see in Silicon Valley is to pick our head up and have 50 different sets of rules across the U.S.,” Stephenson said.

The Supreme Court decided on Monday that it will not consider a series of challenges from telecom companies to Obama-era net neutrality rules designed to bar internet service providers from manipulating loading speeds for specific websites or apps.

The ruling is significant because it allows a previous ruling upholding the constitutionality of the regulations to stand, which may be used as a precedent in the future by another administration.

For proponents of net neutrality, Monday’s Supreme Court decision represents a victory. It means that the D.C. Circuit court’s 2016 decision to uphold “both the FCC's classification of broadband as a telecommunications service, and its rules prohibiting broadband providers from blocking or degrading Internet content, remains in place," senior counsel John Bergmayer of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge said.

"Much of the current FCC’s argument [against net neutrality] depends on ignoring or contradicting the DC Circuit’s earlier findings, but now that these are firmly established as binding law, the Pai FCC’s case is on even weaker ground than before," Bergmayer said.

Two justices recused themselves

Two conservative justices -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- "took no part in the consideration or decision of these petitions," the court announced.

Amy Howe of SCOTUSBlog explained that Kavanaugh was “expected to recuse himself from voting on the petitions because he had participated in the cases while on the D.C. Circuit, and he did. But Chief Justice John Roberts also recused himself – presumably (although there is no way to know for sure) because he owns stock in one of the companies challenging the rules."

By a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court denied petitions brought by AT&T and broadband lobby groups NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom, and the American Cable Association.

The Trump administration overturned net neutrality regulations last year. They have not been in effect since June.

Jessica Rosenworcel, the Federal Communication Commission’s only Democratic Commissioner, noted that the FCC had argued that because the Trump-era FCC had repealed the 2015 rules, the 2016 decision was moot and should be wiped from the books.

“It wasn't enough for this @FCC to roll back #NetNeutrality. It actually petitioned the Supreme Court to erase history and wipe out an earlier court decision upholding open internet policies. But today the Supreme Court refused to do so,” Rosenworcel tweeted.

“Let's call this interesting,” she added.

The January 1, 2019 start date for California's net neutrality law has been put on hold. The state has agreed to delay its implementation until a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is settled.

The law, passed by the California legislature in September, requires internet service providers (ISP) to abide by rules codified by the FCC during the Obama administration. Those rules required all internet traffic to be treated the same.

The FCC under the Trump administration overturned those rules last December, essentially allowing providers to favor their own content over the content of their competitors. California and a handful of other states took steps to restore net neutrality within their borders, meaning large ISPs like Comcast and Verizon would have to observe net neutrality or lose their customers in those states.

Multiple lawsuits

The whole issue has resulted in multiple lawsuits. The Justice Department is suing to block states from implementing their own net neutrality laws, arguing states lack the authority to countermand federal policy.

But the lawsuit delaying California's net neutrality law is one filed by net neutrality supporters. Technology companies and attorneys general from 22 states are suing the FCC, arguing the agency lacked the authority when it voted to overturn net neutrality.

The crux of their argument is this: internet traffic travels over a "common carrier," and under law, a common carrier must treat all traffic the same. The FCC counters that, today, broadband traffic travels over networks built by the ISPs. It is an argument that has largely broken down along partisan lines, with Democrats favoring net neutrality and Republicans opposing it.

No firm timetable

The lawsuit challenging the FCC is now in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC but there is no firm timetable for rendering a decision. A ruling against the FCC would eliminate the need for the California law but the Trump administration could always appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, delaying the law even more.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says every step his office is taking has one aim -- the restoration of net neutrality in California.

California state Senator Scott Wiener, who authored the legislation, expresses confidence the court will uphold the state's right to establish net neutrality within its borders, calling the policy vital to protecting access to the internet.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood is expanding her investigation into reports that many of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality comments – both for and against – were fake.

The investigation was begun by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who charged last December that as many as 2 million comments sent to the FCC on the topic were not from individual consumers, but produced in mass by interest groups.

At the time, Schneiderman said his investigators had found New York, Florida, Texas, and California had each produced more than 100,000 comments purporting to be from real Americans. Since then, the number of allegedly faked comments has skyrocketed.

This week, Underwood's office sent out subpoenas to nearly a dozen industry and advocacy groups seeking any information they might have about the estimated 22 million letters that hit the FCC's inbox, arguing either for against net neutrality.

The FCC voted in mid-December to roll back the net neutrality policy, put in place by the Obama administration in 2015.

Red flags

The New York investigation determined that many of the net neutrality comments used temporary or duplicate email addresses, an easy red flag to spot. It was also highly suspicious, investigators say, that the text of many of the messages was identical.

Earlier this month, researchers at Stanford University analyzed all of the comments submitted to the FCC regarding net neutrality and identified 800,000 that were genuine. Of those, the researchers said more than 99 percent advocated keeping the policy in place.

Congressional Democrats have also pushed for investigations into the large number of comments submitted to the FCC and whether any of them actually mattered. Earlier this year 24 Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asking questions about how the agency dealt with the comments.

Partisan issue

Perhaps no issue divides Republicans and Democrats as much as net neutrality. Democrats support the principle the principle that the internet is a "common carrier" and cannot discriminate against content by favoring one type over another through price or speed.

Though net neutrality was only adopted as a regulation in 2015, they say the standard had been followed from the beginning, since early internet traffic traveled over telephone lines.

Republicans generally counter that internet traffic today travels over broadband networks created by telecommunications companies that are not public utilities.

The issue comes to a head in less than three months when California's net neutrality law is scheduled to take effect. The Trump administration is challenging it in court, arguing that it would cause “irreparable harm” to the U.S. if it were allowed to stand.

A new report from Stanford University has found that, after weeding out millions of fake comments, 99.7 percent of unique comments filed on the FCC’s website ahead of the agency’s vote against it in December 2017 were in favor of keeping net neutrality protections.

Some of the fake comments left amongst the 22 million public comments filed in total were made through “sophisticated campaigns that filed fake comments using the names of real people -- including journalists, Senators, and dead people,” Ryan Singel, a Media and Strategy Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, wrote in a blog post Monday.

“With the fog of fraud and spam lifted from the comment corpus, lawmakers and their staff, journalists, interested citizens and policymakers can use these reports to better understand what Americans actually said about the repeal of net neutrality protections and why 800,000 Americans went further than just signing a petition for a redress of grievances by actually putting their concerns in their own words,” Singel said.

Phony comments

The report noted that not all non-unique comments filed via organized campaigns were fake, since many commenters used form letters to voice their support for net neutrality. However, Singel and his colleagues said, “due to the large amount of noise created by fake comments, it remains very difficult to locate the real signals in the non-unique comments.”

For the analysis, the researchers used machine learning models to identify more than 800,000 unique comments filed from April 2017 to October 27. A closer look at these comments showed that these commenters were overwhelmingly against rolling back net neutrality protections.

The report authors found that 99.7 percent of the sampled comments supported keeping the protections of the 2015 Open Internet Order.

In terms of political leanings, the report found that “while there were more comments on average from House districts represented by Democrats, a substantial number of unique comments were filed in Republican districts.” The average number of comments in all districts was 1,489, with an average of 1,202 in Republican-held districts

The report authors also found that unique commenters had a clear understanding of the issue in question, contrary to assertions from lawmakers. Many commenters referenced the issue of whether the FCC classifies broadband providers under Title I or Title II of the Communications Act.

The report follows an admission from the FCC that it lied about a DDoS attack that temporarily took down its comment section in the lead-up to the historic decision, which prevented some consumers from expressing their support of net neutrality regulations.

A judge recently ruled that the FCC must publicly release records related to the fake comments.

Lobbying organizations for the telecommunications industry and cable TV have joined forces to sue California over its newly enacted net neutrality law.

The suit follows similar litigation filed by the U.S. Justice Department this week, charging the law runs counter to federal policy. The industry suit filed in the Eastern District of California makes the same argument.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reversed an Obama administration policy that required all internet traffic to be treated the same. That meant internet service providers (ISP) could not charge more for websites that used more bandwidth or couldn't favor one company's content over another.

Under the new federal policy, ISPs are free to impose additional charges on high bandwidth traffic or eliminate data charges when customers view its content. California lawmakers responded by passing a law requiring ISPs serving California consumers to abide by the previous net neutrality rules.

Joining forces with the feds

USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, and ACA -- the industry lobbying groups -- have joined the U.S. government is seeking to block the California law from going into effect January 1.

“The nation’s broadband providers are the innovation engine of America’s digital economy and remain committed to an open internet for consumers," the groups said in a statement. "We oppose California’s action to regulate internet access because it threatens to negatively affect services for millions of consumers and harm new investment and economic growth."

The suit makes the same argument as the government litigation. It says Republican and Democratic administrations have embraced the notion that when states make rules that are the opposite of a federal law, they are preempted by federal law.

Exceptions

There are exceptions, however. Several states have legalized the possession and use of marijuana, which is still prohibited under federal law. These state laws have not been challenged in court.

Both the government and industry suits challenge the California law, saying it would be too complicated to offer internet service if providers have to follow different rules in different states.

Until the early 2000s, the principle of net neutrality prevailed because internet service was provided over telephone lines. Telecom services were determined to be common carriers, who are required to treat all customers the same.

Once broadband emerged and internet traffic began to move over cable, fiber, and airwaves, ISPs argued the old rules no longer applied. In 2015, the FCC formally declared that the internet was a public utility, requiring equal treatment of all traffic. The FCC reversed that policy in December 2017.

The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the state of California, charging that its newly enacted net neutrality law places “unlawful burdens” on the federal government's efforts to deregulate the internet.

The suit was filed within hours of California Gov. Jerry Brown signing the net neutrality bill into law.

California’s net neutrality law cleared both houses of the legislature by wide margins. The law reimposes the standard enacted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the Obama administration in 2015. It requires all internet service providers to treat all internet traffic the same.

For example, under the previous national policy, overturned by the Trump administration last December, networks could not charge more to companies offering video streaming services. They also could not slow down a service like Netflix while providing faster speeds to their own streaming services.

California State Senator Scott Wiener spearheaded the drive to reimpose net neutrality in the state and said the final product constituted “the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation."

The Justice Department suit takes a different view, saying the California law attempts to regulate the internet, which is now contrary to federal law.

FCC supports the suit

“I’m pleased the Department of Justice has filed this suit,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who led FCC efforts to overturn the federal net neutrality policy. “The Internet is inherently an interstate information service. As such, only the federal government can set policy in this area. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently reaffirmed that state regulation of information services is preempted by federal law.”

Pai makes the claim that net neutrality, as envisioned by the California law, hurts consumers. He says that under the law, large ISPs like Verizon and AT&T would be prohibited from offering some free data plans he says allow consumers to stream video and music, exempt from any data limits.

“They have proven enormously popular in the marketplace, especially among lower-income Americans,” Pai said. “But notwithstanding the consumer benefits, this state law bans them.”

But supporters of net neutrality argue they are the ones defending a free and open internet. Without it, they say corporations will decide what you can see online and how fast you can see it.

The argument probably won't be settled anytime soon, and when it is it will probably be the Supreme Court that settles it.

At the beginning of this month, California’s Senate passed SB 822 -- a net neutrality bill that state senators have deemed the “gold standard” of state-level protections. Governor Jerry Brown has until the end of this month to sign the bill into law.

In the interim, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai called the state’s new policy “illegal” and said it “poses a risk to the rest of the country.”

However, California Senator and author of the net neutrality bill Scott Wiener said that the new initiatives are “necessary and legal because Chairman Pai abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open internet,” according to a press release.

“Unlike Pai’s FCC, California isn’t run by the big telecom companies,” Wiener added. “Pai can take whatever potshots at California he wants. The reality is that California is the world’s innovation capital, and like the crony capitalism promoted by the Trump administration, California understands exactly what it takes to foster an open innovation economy with a level playing field.”

What the bill does

Under SB 822, internet service providers (ISPs) are prohibited from blocking or throttling lawful traffic. It also doesn’t allow websites to be charged for access to an ISP’s subscribers or for fast lanes to those subscribers.

The bill also prevents companies like AT&T (which is an ISP and a content provider) from not counting the content and the websites they own against subscribers’ data caps. Moreover, the proposed bill bans ISPs from getting around these protections at the point where data enters their networks and then charging access fees to reach ISP customers.

To Pai, the bill is allowing “government control of the internet.” He went on to call California’s bill “a radical, anti-consumer internet regulation bill that would impose restrictions even more burdensome than those adopted by the FCC in 2015.”

Pai said under SB 822, Californians will be prevented from “buying many free-data plans” that “allow consumers to stream video, music, and the like exempt from any data limits.”

However, Senator Wiener sees it differently. He believes the law would ensure “that we as individuals get to decide where we go on the internet, rather than having internet service providers decide for us.”

He added that “big telecom companies and cable companies can’t force us to get our information only from favored websites.”

Wiener also mentioned Pai’s failure to address Verizon’s recent throttling of Santa Clara County firefighters’ wireless network during the fires in California. The firefighters were unable to provide emergency services because Verizon throttled the network until the fire department agreed to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

Wiener said that Pai's lack of action on the matter speaks volumes and stymies his criticims of California's proposed rules.

On Friday, California's Senate approved the “gold standard” of state-level net neutrality protections. The measure, called SB 822, passed by a 27-12 vote after having been passed Thursday by the State Assembly by a similarly large margin.

"We passed the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation," San Francisco Democrat Scott Wiener, who co-wrote the bill, said in a statement.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has until the end of September to sign the bill. If enacted, California would become the fourth state to create a net neutrality law since the FCC scrapped net neutrality regulations last year. The bill in California is widely considered to equip consumers with the most stringent protections.

"This is about a level playing field and an Internet where we as individuals get to decide where we go on the Internet instead of being told by Internet service providers, or manipulated by Internet service providers, into going where they want us to go," Wiener said.

What the bill does

The bill prohibits internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling lawful traffic. It also bars the practice of charging websites for access to an ISP’s subscribers or for fast lanes to those subscribers.

SB 822 also prevents ISPs from getting around these protections at the point where data enters their networks and from charging access fees to reach ISP customers. Additionally, the bill prevents companies like AT&T (which is both an ISP and a content provider) from not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers’ data caps.

“When Donald Trump’s F.C.C. decided to take a wrecking ball to net neutrality protections, we knew that California had to step in to ensure our residents have access to a free and open internet,” Wiener said in a statement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that supports online privacy, called the bill’s advancement "a victory that can be replicated." Weiner expressed similar sentiments, noting that he hopes California’s potential new net neutrality rules can be rolled out at a national level.

California is considering regulations to impose its own version of net neutrality, but a robocall campaign is underway to negate that effort.

Supporters of California's proposed net neutrality rules report instances of senior citizens receiving robocalls claiming the state's proposal to enact its own net neutrality rules will result in higher mobile phone bills and slower internet speeds.

According to consumer groups in the state and net neutrality supporters in the legislature, the robocalls offer no evidence that net neutrality will have any kind of negative impact on consumers. They say the state's proposed regulations mirror the national regulations that were on the books until the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rolled them back in December.

'Misinformation campaign'

“We’re now dealing with a straight-up misinformation campaign on our #NetNeutrality bill, #SB822: industry robo-calls to seniors falsely telling them that protecting net neutrality will increase their phone bills by $30,” State Senator Scott Wiener said in a tweet. “Scaring seniors with lies about their financial security? Gross.”

The consumer groups say the robocalls being made to California seniors are coming from a group called the Civil Justice Association of California and the Congress of California Seniors. The whole project, consumer groups charge, is being bankrolled by AT&T and Verizon.

However, both AT&T and Verizon deny any connection to efforts to block California's efforts to impose net neutrality rules and both say they have nothing to do with the phone calls California seniors are receiving.

Status of the bill

After initially gutting many of the protections in California's net neutrality bill, a key legislative committee restored provisions of the measure to require internet service providers to treat all internet traffic the same.

Wiener, the author of the legislation, ultimately reached an agreement with Communications Committee Chairman Miguel Santiago to restore the bill to its stronger form and bring it back for a vote. The bill cleared the committee with all key protections intact.

Though it won committee approval, the measure to restore net neutrality in California has yet to be brought up for a floor vote. Sponsors say they think they are close to a vote and expect strong opposition from large telecom and cable companies.

On Wednesday, a California state net neutrality bill that would provide the toughest set of net neutrality protections in the nation was approved by a key legislative committee.

SB 822 was approved 9-3 by the state Assembly’s Communications and Conveyance Committee, with all nine votes in favor of the bill coming from Democrats. Next week, the bill will advance to the Assembly floor for a final vote.

The bill was passed by the state Senate in May. Then in June, it was gutted by the same committee that voted to pass it on Wednesday under pressure from broadband providers like AT&T.

The bill’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), ultimately reached an agreement with Communications Committee Chairman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) to restore the bill to its stronger form and bring it back for a vote. The bill was approved with “all key protections intact,” Wiener said in a statement.

"Today's committee action sending SB 822 to the floor is a big step forward, but we continue to face a huge fight, as the big telecom and cable companies will stop at nothing to kill the bill," Wiener said.

"Yet, we have momentum and the support of a broad and diverse coalition that understands the importance of a free and open internet for everyone. I look forward to working with our supporters and everyday Californians to get this vital piece of legislation to the governor's desk."

“Gold standard” for state-level net neutrality protections

SB 822 prohibits internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or throttling lawful traffic. It also bars the practice of charging websites for access to an ISP’s subscribers or for fast lanes to those subscribers.

Additionally, the bill prevents ISPs from getting around these protections at the point where data enters their networks and from charging access fees to reach ISP customers. The bill also prevents companies like AT&T (which is both an ISP and a content provider) from not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers’ data caps.

Opponents of the bill include AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, chambers of commerce, and others. Its supporters include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, advocacy groups, and others.

Late last night, 22 state attorneys general filed a brief asking the appeals court to reinstate the net neutrality rules that were founded under the Obama administration. President Trump’s administration has effectively worked to overturn those regulations, and the group is trying to prevent individual states from creating their own regulations.

The attorneys general argued that the decision made in January by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was not well thought out and will eventually “cause [inevitable harms] to consumers, public safety, and existing regulatory schemes.” The senders also assert that the commission “entirely ignored many of these issues” when the decision was made.

The group is primarily concerned about consumers’ public safety, as it is one of the agency’s main tenets.

Additionally, the attorneys general wrote that the FCC deliberately disregarded clear evidence that proved internet providers aren’t as honest as they claim to be when consumers are concerned. Despite “substantial record evidence showing that [broadband] providers have abused...and will abuse their gatekeeper roles in ways that harm consumers and threaten public safety,” the FCC accepted industry promises.

Abdicating responsibility to consumers

The brief was led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who was joined by attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

The regulators’ arguments supplement an ongoing lawsuit against the FCC, and they are joined by several other groups including: Mozilla, Vimeo, Etsy, Free Press, and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, among others. These groups filed a separate brief last night, in which they called the FCC’s actions “a wholesale abdication of its statutory responsibilities.”

With the lawsuit, the states are hoping to overturn the 2017 decision by ruling it “arbitrary and capricious.” Doing so would indicate that the FCC didn’t consider the full extent of consequences this decision would have. Federal agencies are given clearance to make decisions -- so long as they are within legal authority -- but the agencies must be able to justify all such decisions. With regards to net neutrality, the FCC must prove the decision to eliminate the regulations was done properly.

Push to reinstate net neutrality

The main goal of the lawsuit is to reinstate net neutrality. However, should the courts not grant that request, the states are looking to instate their own net neutrality regulations and have the court do away with part of the FCC’s order that bans states from having their own rules.

Despite members of Congress, state officials, tech companies, and advocacy groups fighting to keep net neutrality, it was officially overturned in June. Though the Senate voted in May to keep net neutrality, the vote was mostly symbolic and the final decision had to be voted through the Republican majority House of Representatives.

The somewhat strange claim that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was hit by a denial of service attack (DDoS), when it really wasn't, just got a little more strange.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says he knew the claim was false for more than six months, but was unable to speak out because an internal investigation was underway.

Originally, the FCC cited the alleged DDoS attack as the reason that many comments filed in relation to the FCC's rollback of net neutrality rules could not be recorded.

But last week the FCC Inspector General issued an extraordinary report finding that the agency lied about the attack that temporarily prevented net neutrality supporters from filing comments opposing Pai's plan to kill net neutrality rules.

The report concluded that the false claims were made primarily by former chief information officer David Bray, and Bray's false statements were sent to Congress in attachments to letters that Pai wrote to lawmakers.

Why he had to stay silent

At a Senate hearing this week, Pai told lawmakers he wanted to set the record straight, but couldn't.

"On January 23 of 2018, I was informed by my chief of staff, who had been informed by the Office of Inspector General, that they had suspicions that the former chief information officer's statements to us and to Congress were inaccurate," Pai told the committee. "The OIG then requested, because they had referred this matter for potential criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice, 'do not say anything to anyone.'"

Pai said the OIG's report cleared him of any wrongdoing because it found that the FCC's false statements were made by the CIO rather than by his office. Pai told the committee that he wanted to tell Congress earlier but was prevented in doing so by the OIG's request for secrecy.

The FCC rolled back the Obama-era net neutrality rules in December, though a few states have taken steps to enact their own internet protections.

A group of House democrats want to know when FCC Chairman Ajit Pai knew that the agency’s claims of a DDoS attack were false.

Last week, the FCC’s Office of Inspector General released a report that found no evidence to support the claims of DDoS attacks in May of 2017.

The agency had previously blamed multiple DDoS attacks for temporarily taking down a comment section of its website following a segment of Last Week Tonight, in which comedian John Oliver asked viewers to submit comments to the FCC and speak out in support of net neutrality.

However, viewers were unable to voice their opinion on the proposed rollback of net neutrality because the comment submission section wasn’t available at the time.

Now that it has come to light that the agency’s claims of a DDoS attack were false, a handful of Democratic lawmakers want to know when Pai became aware that there was no DDoS attack and why the agency didn’t correct its public statements alleging a DDoS attack before now.

Misrepresented facts

“We want to know when you and your staff first learned that the information the Commission shared about the alleged cyberattack was false,” Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Pai.

"It is troubling that you allowed the public myth created by the FCC to persist and your misrepresentations to remain uncorrected for over a year,” they wrote. The letter was signed by Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ), Mike Doyle (PA), Jerry McNerney (CA) and Debbie Dingell (MI).

The results of the investigation concluded that FCC officials deliberately misrepresented facts in responses to Congressional inquiries.

"Given the significant media, public and Congressional attention this alleged cyberattack received for over a year, it is hard to believe that the release of the IG's report was the first time that you and your staff realized that no cyberattack occurred," wrote the lawmakers.

"Such ignorance would signify a dereliction of your duty as the head of the FCC, particularly due to the severity of the allegations and the blatant lack of evidence."

The Democratic lawmakers have asked Pai for complete written responses to their questions by August 28. Pai is also scheduled to appear before a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee oversight hearing on Thursday where he is expected to face questions about the results of the investigation.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has admitted that it lied about being the target of a DDoS attack that temporarily took down a comment section of its website, preventing consumers from voicing their opinion on the proposed rollback of net neutrality rules.

On Monday, investigators revealed that there is no evidence to support the claims of DDoS attacks in May of last year. The probe was carried out after lawmakers and journalists pushed the FCC to share evidence of the alleged cyberattacks.

In response to the results of the investigation by the Government Accountability Office, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released a statement admitting that there was no DDoS attack. In it, Pai blamed the spread of false information on employees hired by the Obama administration.

Pai blames former CIO

Pai contended that because he "inherited... a culture" from "the prior Administration,” he isn’t to blame for the spread of inaccurate information.

“I am deeply disappointed that the FCC's former Chief Information Officer [David Bray], who was hired by the prior Administration and is no longer with the Commission, provided inaccurate information about this incident to me, my office, Congress, and the American people. This is completely unacceptable,” Pai wrote.

“I'm also disappointed that some working under the former CIO apparently either disagreed with the information that he was presenting or had questions about it, yet didn't feel comfortable communicating their concerns to me or my office,” he added.

As ConsumerAffairs previously reported, the FCC has repeatedly faced accusations that it concocted this story of the DDoS attack. The agency had also tried to bolster its narrative by suggesting that this wasn’t the first attack to occur; it said a similar attack had occured in 2014 under former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

‘This happened on his watch’

Fight for the Future, a consumer advocacy group focused on digital rights, issued the following statement on Monday in response to Pai’s statement:

“Under Ajit Pai’s leadership, the FCC sabotaged its own public comment process. From ignoring millions of fraudulent comments using stolen names and addresses to outright lies about DDoS attacks that never happened, the agency recklessly abdicated its responsibility to maintain a functional way for the public to be heard,” the group wrote.

“Pai attempts to blame his staff, but this happened on his watch, and he repeatedly obstructed attempts by lawmakers and the press to get answers. The repeal of net neutrality was not only unpopular, it was illegitimate. Congress must act now to pass the CRA resolution to reverse this decision and restore basic protections for Internet freedom.”

The first Republican House member has joined Democrats to support a rollback of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) dismantling of net neutrality.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) has said he will support a measure to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn an FCC vote last December to change the policy, formalized in 2015 under the Obama administration.

In an op-ed piece, Coffman notes that the policy of barring internet service providers (ISP) from favoring one type of content over another was a longstanding practice before it was codified as official policy, and that it has Republican roots, from the George W. Bush administration.

“The Republican-controlled FCC unanimously adopted much of FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s 'four Internet freedoms,'” Coffman writes. “These four items broadly supported competition and the freedom of consumers to access all lawful online content.”

Coffman said the FCC under Obama took steps in 2010 and 2015 to “further solidify these net neutrality principles.” The FCC action under the Trump administration, he says, was a complete reversal.

At the same time, the Colorado Republican has introduced legislation that contains many of the net neutrality protections contained in the 2015 FCC regulation.

Lonely voice

At the moment, Coffman may be a lonely voice within his party, as most Republican lawmakers have not supported net neutrality. But among advocacy groups hoping to overturn the FCC's most recent action, Coffman's defection is a hopeful sign.

“The dam is breaking, as it should,” said Faiz Shakir, national political director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Rep. Coffman’s support to undo FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality shows that public pressure is continuing to build on this issue and cannot be ignored this November.”

Shakir and others note that net neutrality has been observed from the beginning of the internet. Because internet connections used telephone lines, the same principles regulating telephone companies were applied to the internet.

Common carriers

Because they are deemed “common carriers,” telephone companies are required to treat all traffic the same. The FCC's 2015 regulation essentially classified the internet as a common carrier as well, applying those same restrictions.

Opponents of net neutrality point out that very little internet traffic moves over telephone lines these days and that companies investing in wireless and cable infrastructure should be free to control their networks.

Earlier this year, the Senate approved a Congressional Review Act measure to overturn the FCC's abolition of net neutrality. Even supporters acknowledge the challenges of getting the provision through the House, where Republicans hold a comfortable majority.

California's tough net neutrality bill, stripped of much of its enforcement powers by a legislative committee, is tough once again.

The bill's author, State Senator Scott Weiner, says the General Assembly's Communications Committee has restored most of the original provisions, which were written to mirror the national policy put in place under the Obama Administration.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under President Trump, began the process of repealing the national policy last December.

“After Donald Trump’s FCC obliterated net neutrality, we stepped in to protect California residents and businesses and to ensure an open internet,” Wiener said. “For months, we have worked with a broad coalition to pass strong and enforceable net neutrality protections. As internet service providers and media companies like AT&T and Time Warner consolidate, net neutrality is more important than ever."

Committee gutted the bill

Net neutrality supporters were outraged two weeks ago when the chairman of a key legislative committee amended the bill. At the time, Weiner said the watered down measure allowed for massive loopholes sought by major telecommunications companies.

For example, the amended bill would have allowed internet service providers (ISP) to charge websites a fee for consumers to access it. The amended bill also allowed ISPs to classify some content as "privileged," meaning it would not count against a consumer's allotted data, while other content would.

Critics were also unhappy that the amended bill would allow ISPs to throttle entire classes of applications. For example, providers could slow all online gaming or all online voice calls.

It prompted Weiner to call the amended version a "fake net neutrality bill." But after working with the chairman of the committee and other key lawmakers, Weiner says everyone has agreed to a version that closely resembles the original bill and reflects the FCC policy under the Obama administration.

States that pass strict net neutrality rules could pose a problem for ISPs and large telecom companies, which will have to abide by different sets of rules in different states.

What the bill does

Weiner said the revised net neutrality bill will prohibit the blocking of websites, the speeding up or slowing down of websites or whole classes of applications such as video, and the practice of charging websites for access to an ISP’s subscribers or for fast lanes to those subscribers.

The bill also bars ISPs from circumventing these protections at the point where data enters their networks, and from charging access fees to reach ISP customers.

It would also prevent companies like AT&T, which is both an ISP and a content provider, from not counting the content and websites they own against subscribers’ data caps.

Weiner said he is confident the revised package of net neutrality measures has the votes needed for passage. The California legislature has until August 31 to vote on it.

A Democratic state lawmaker from California “eviscerated” the text of a bill that would have equipped consumers in the Golden State with the nation’s toughest set of state-level net neutrality protections, according to Sen. Scott Wiener.

Late Tuesday night, Michael Santiago -- an assemblyman from Los Angeles and chair of the Communications and Conveyance committee -- amended bill SB 822 to allow for loopholes that supposedly benefit the telecommunications industry.

Members of California’s Communications and Conveyance Committee forced a vote on the amendments before the hearing on Wednesday officially began. The amendments passed 8 - 2.

"It is, with the amendments, a fake net neutrality bill," said Sen. Scott Wiener from San Francisco, who authored the original bill.

The move comes two weeks after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to eliminate net neutrality rules. The amendments represent a significant blow to Democratic lawmakers who had hoped that California’s strong net neutrality protections would serve as the “gold standard” to replace the rules that the FCC rolled back.

Loopholes that undermine consumer choice

Santiago’s edits would allow ISPs to charge any website a fee for consumers to be able to access it. The amendments also allow for privileged content, meaning some content would eat up cellular data while others wouldn’t.

Privileged content would likely be created by the network’s parent company. This would mean, for example, that Comcast could make it free for consumers to go to NBC’s website while making them use their data to get news from another site.

The amendments would also allow ISPs to throttle entire classes of applications. For example, providers could throttle all online gaming or all online voice calls.

Financial ties to AT&T

AT&T is Assemblyman Santiago’s fifth-largest campaign donor, according to advocacy group Fight for the Future. However, Santiago maintains that his changes to the bill were not influenced by his financial ties to the telecommunications industry.

“This is the legislative process at work,” Santiago said in a statement. “Any suggestions of actions taken today somehow being otherwise motivated are irresponsible at best and insulting beyond that.”

Despite his claims, Santiago’s amendments have sparked allegations of corruption from critics.

“CA - All it took was $29K to buy #NetNeutrality protections away from you,” tweeted Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

“The weakening of California’s #NetNeutrality bill shows what the forces we are facing are capable of. Every state deserves gold standard rules. That’s why the House of Reps should pass my CRA resolution immediately to reinstate net neutrality nationally,” said Senator Ed Markey (D - Mass.).

Net neutrality rules established under the Obama era were officially repealed today following a vote last month by the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The decision comes despite efforts by members of Congress, state officials, tech companies, and advocacy groups who have fought to reverse the agency’s decision for months.

Net neutrality was designed to prevent internet providers from blocking, speeding up, or slowing down access to specific online services. To do away with it, the FCC’s order had to be approved by the Office of Budget and Management.

Upon receiving the order last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai noted that removing net neutrality would be the end of burdensome internet regulations.

“Now, on June 11, these unnecessary and harmful internet regulations will be repealed and the bipartisan, light-touch approach that served the online world well for nearly 20 years will be restored,” Pai said in a statement at the time.

“June 11 is significant because it will be the first time in the over 15 year battle over net neutrality that the FCC will have essentially no role in preserving an open internet and overseeing the broadband market,” said Gigi Sohn, a counselor to former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. “Those ‘fast lanes’ will put those who won’t or cannot pay in the slow lane, making the internet a lot like cable TV.”

Legislators fight back

Despite the decision on net neutrality, government officials are continuing the fight in hopes of repealing the decision.

Last month, the Senate voted 52-47 in favor of keeping net neutrality, but the vote was mostly symbolic, as the final decision had to be passed through the Republican majority House of Representatives.

Late last week, Senators were sending letters to House Speaker Paul Ryan in the hopes of pushing him to schedule a vote on the issue. Advocacy groups are calling for “mass online actions” to bring the issue further into the public eye and hopefully pressure Congress to act.

“It’s an uphill fight,” said Chris Lewis, VP of Public Knowledge, a tech advocacy group that has been urging the House to take action.

Individual states have also started taking action against the repeal of net neutrality. More than 20 states have filed lawsuits to stop the repeal, and a number of states have pushed legislation to enforce net neutrality within its borders. The California Senate announced at the end of last month that it is working to enforce stricter net neutrality laws than what federal regulations require.

However, according to the FCC, states don’t have the power to make their own policies.

“It’s patently illegal for the states to make their own internet policy,” said Roslyn Layton, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who served on President Trump’s transition team for the FCC.

What to expect moving forward

Though today marks the end of net neutrality as consumers have known it, supporters of the repeal are adamant that the changes won’t come immediately.

“Nothing will change the next day,” said Kevin Werbach, an associate professor of legal studies at Wharton and former FCC advisor. “Companies are not going to take any major action to change their policies until it’s resolved.”

The fate of net neutrality is likely to last throughout the remainder of the year, if not longer based on the push for legislation.

“We’ll see what happens after the [midterm] election,” Lewis said.

With net neutrality rules slated to come to an end on Monday, Senate Democrats are urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to schedule a vote on the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that could preserve existing net neutrality rules.

In the letter, all 49 Senate Democrats called on Ryan to allow the House to vote on the bill.

"The rules that this resolution would restore were enacted by the FCC in 2015 to prevent broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, prioritizing, or otherwise unfairly discriminating against Internet traffic that flows across their networks," the letter said.

"Without these protections, broadband providers can decide what content gets through to consumers at what speeds and could use this power to discriminate against their competitors or other content."

Senate voted to save net neutrality

Last month, the Senate voted to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality ruling by a vote of 52 to 47. However, the vote in favor of the CRA was mostly symbolic. Both the House, which is comprised of a Republican majority, and President Donald Trump need to sign off on the CRA in order for it to take effect.

House Democrats will need the support of at least 25 Republicans in order to force a vote and pass the resolution. If passed, President Trump would need to provide final executive approval, which isn’t likely since he has said that he agrees with the FCC’s policy.

Although it may be a long shot, Democrats are still fighting.

"More than 170 representatives have already indicated their support for the same resolution in the House," advocacy group Demand Progress said. "Two hundred and eighteen signatures are needed in order to force the [Congressional Review Act] resolution to the floor, increasingly within reach following the bipartisan vote in the Senate."

Protecting the average consumer

Proponents of net neutrality have called the FCC’s decision “disastrous” for its potential impact on the average consumer and middle-class family.

“The internet should be kept free and open like our highways, accessible and affordable to every American, regardless of ability to pay,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “The repeal of net neutrality is not only a blow to the average consumer, but it is a blow to public schools, rural Americans, communities of color and small businesses.”

Senate Democrats expressed similar sentiments in their letter, which was sent on Thursday.

"It is incumbent on the House of Representatives to listen to the voices of consumers, including the millions of Americans who supported the FCC's 2015 net neutrality order, and keep the internet free and open for all," the letter said.

"It is essential that you take this step to protect middle-class families, consumers, farmers, communities of color, entrepreneur, and all who rely on the free and open internet.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is facing more accusations that it lied about being the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that temporarily took down a comment section of its website, preventing people from voicing their opinion on net neutrality.

Last year, on May 7, comedian John Oliver asked viewers to submit comments to the FCC and speak out in support of net neutrality. However, the comment submission section wasn’t available at the time the program aired.

The FCC said it was because its system was hit by “multiple external distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS)” attacks due to an overwhelming amount of site traffic. Its claim was investigated by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), but no solid evidence or documentation to support the claim has been released.

Accused of misleading the media

This week, a report by Gizmodo revealed how David Bray -- the FCC’s chief information officer between 2013 and June 2017 who was responsible for maintaining the comment system -- pushed the narrative that the comments section was taken down due to a cyberattack.

The report was based on redacted emails received through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by American Oversight. It suggests that Bray tried to push the cyberattack narrative with claims that the public comment system had been the target of a similar attack in 2014. Bray even said former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler didn’t reveal this attack publicly “out of concerns of copycats.”

Coincidentally, both the 2014 and 2017 comment system outages occured right after Oliver used his HBO show to call on viewers to submit comments to the FCC in favor of saving net neutrality rules.

No evidence to support DDoS claim

According to Gizmodo, internal emails revealed that the “FCC conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story.”

“Internal emails reviewed by Gizmodo lay bare the agency’s efforts to counter rife speculation that senior officials manufactured a cyberattack, allegedly to explain away technical problems plaguing the FCC’s comment system amid its high-profile collection of public comments on a controversial and since-passed proposal to overturn federal net neutrality rules,” the report said.

“The FCC has been unwilling or unable to produce any evidence an attack occurred -- not to the reporters who’ve requested and even sued over it, and not to U.S. lawmakers who’ve demanded to see it. Instead, the agency conducted a quiet campaign to bolster its cyberattack story with the aid of friendly and easily duped reporters, by spreading word of an earlier cyberattack that never happened.”

Researchers doubt DDoS attack

Cybersecurity experts have expressed skepticism over the FCC’s claim that it was the target of a DDoS attack after Oliver’s program aired in May of last year.

“There don’t appear to be any indications of a DDoS attack in the sensors we use to monitor for such things,” John Bambenek, a threat intelligence manager at Fidelis Cybersecurity, said at the time. “It appears the issue with the FCC is less of a DDoS attack, traditionally defined, and more of an issue of crowdsourcing comments generated by John Oliver and Reddit.”

“There was no observed dark web chatter about such a DDoS before or after the event and no botnets that I’m monitoring received any commands ordering a DDoS on the FCC’s site,” said Jake Williams, CEO of cybersecurity firm Rendition InfoSec.

“This is a smoking gun”

Evan Greer, the deputy director of Fight for the Future, a consumer advocacy group focused on digital rights, described the emails as “a smoking gun.”

“The FCC lied to reporters, and to Congress, in order to obscure the fact that they utterly failed to maintain a legitimate public comment process, as they are legally required to do, in their net neutrality repeal proceeding. Overseeing the FCC is Congress’ job,” Greer wrote.

“Voters from across the political spectrum overwhelmingly oppose the gutting of net neutrality,” Greer continued. “No one wants their cable company controlling what they can see and do on the internet. Inaction is unacceptable. Any member of Congress who remains silent and fails to sign the discharge petition should prepare to face the Internet’s wrath come election time.”

On Wednesday, the California Senate voted to enforce net neutrality rules that are stricter than what is required by federal regulations.

The new laws would replace the ones that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to overturn at the end of 2017. Despite passing through the Senate on a 23-12 vote, the law will now go to the State Assembly before making its way to the governor. As it stands now, it looks like the law will pass, as both the State Assembly and Governor are Democrats.

Under the proposed bill, California’s regulations would mirror the current countrywide bans on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization that were implemented in 2015 by the FCC. However, as the state aims to impose stronger state-level net neutrality regulations following attempts from the FCC’s Republican leaders to eliminate federal rules, the bill would also ban zero-rating arrangements that allow internet providers to charge online services for data cap exemptions.

“When Donald Trump’s FCC took a wrecking ball to the Obama-era net neutrality protections, we said we step in to make sure that California residents would be protected from having their Internet access manipulated,” said bill sponsor Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). “I want to thank the enormous grassroots coalition that is fighting tooth and nail to help pass [this bill] and protect a free and open Internet.”

AT&T fights back

AT&T and the lobby group that represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies haven’t held back in voicing their adverse opinions on the bill to lawmakers.

Both AT&T and the California Cable & Telecommunications Association (CCTA) have distributed documents analyzing California’s proposed bill and highlighting the ways it is too strict when compared to federal regulations. The documents emphasize that Wiener’s bill goes far beyond the FCC regulations, and the groups also argue that the FCC’s 2015 regulations are more comprehensive when it comes to defining all relevant terms and clearing up any potential confusion with consumers.

From Wiener’s standpoint, these lobbyists are “trying to create the inaccurate impression among legislators that the bill deviates significantly from the 2015 FCC order.”

“You can’t go and get federal net neutrality protections repealed and then be surprised and indignant and complain that states are stepping in to protect consumers and the economy,” he said.

However, AT&T stands by its critical stance.

“Recognizing that there may be instances in which paid prioritization is beneficial, the FCC waives the ban if the petitioner demonstrated the practice would provide some significant public interest benefit and would not harm the open nature of the Internet,” the company wrote.

Looking back and looking ahead

Net neutrality has garnered much attention in the press lately, as the FCC repealed the Obama-era policy last December. However, by mid-May, Democratic senators overturned the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order by a vote of 52-47 under the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

While the action is set to go into effect on June 11, the vote was more symbolic than anything else. The GOP controls the majority of the House of Representatives, and while it doesn’t intend to take similar action, Democrats need to get at least 25 Republicans on their side. From there, President Trump makes the final executive order, which doesn’t look favorable for Democrats -- or consumers -- as he agrees with the FCC’s proposed policy.

“A vote against this resolution will be a vote to protect large corporations and special interests, leaving the American public to pay the price,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Should net neutrality be voted down again, it could be disastrous for consumers. Critics of the FCC’s new regulations worry that the public could pay more for slower and less consistent internet service.

“The repeal of net neutrality is not only a blow to the average consumer, but it is a blow to our public schools, rural Americans, communities of color, and small businesses,” Schumer said. “The Internet should be kept free and and open like our highways, accessible and affordable to every American, regardless of ability to pay.”

By a vote of 52 to 47, senators voted to overturn the Federal Communication Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order. The FCC repealed the Obama-era net neutrality policy last December.

On Wednesday, all 49 Democrats voted in favor of restoring the consumer-friendly rule, as well as Republican Senators Susan Collins, of Maine; John Kennedy, of Louisiana; and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska.

Democrats used a tool called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse the ruling. The CRA allows Congress to review and potentially reverse recent decisions made by federal agencies.

"Today is a monumental day," said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., during debate over the resolution. "Today we show the American people who sides with them, and who sides with the powerful special interests and corporate donors who are thriving under this administration."

Long road ahead

The action represented a blow to the FCC’s new rule, which is set to go into effect June 11. However, the vote was mostly symbolic. Net neutrality still faces a long, uphill battle toward restoration.   

The House -- which is comprised of a large GOP majority -- doesn’t intend to take similar action. Democrats will need at least 25 Republicans to join them in the House. After that, President Trump would need to give final executive approval, which he is unlikely to provide since he has said that he agrees with the FCC’s policy.

Democrats say they’re planning to carry the fight to salvage the concept that internet service providers (ISP) must treat all content the same into the 2018 midterms. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes the vote will energize Democratic voters in the midterm elections and help the party capture seats currently held by Republicans.

“A vote against this resolution will be a vote to protect large corporations and special interests, leaving the American public to pay the price,” Schumer said.

‘Disastrous’ for the average consumer

Critics of the FCC’s net neutrality rules, which have been in place since 2015, say they’re worried about consumers being forced to pay more for slower or less consistent service. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, part of the Republican majority, has called the rule "heavy-handed" and unnecessary.

Those fighting to restore net neutrality have called the FCC’s decision to repeal the policy “disastrous” for its potential impact on the average consumer and middle-class family.

“The internet should be kept free and open like our highways, accessible and affordable to every American, regardless of ability to pay,” Schumer said.

“The repeal of net neutrality is not only a blow to the average consumer, but it is a blow to public schools, rural Americans, communities of color and small businesses. A vote against this resolution will be a vote to protect large corporations and special interests, leaving the American public to pay the price.”

Democrats say they have the votes to force a vote in the Senate on Wednesday for a measure to restore net neutrality, which is being eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says all 49 Democratic caucus members will vote for the measure, along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.). Because Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is ill and will not be present to vote, Schumer believes the measure will pass 50-49.

“The repeal of net neutrality is not only a blow to the average consumer, but it is a blow to public schools, rural Americans, communities of color and small businesses,” Schumer said.

Vote mostly symbolic

Though the Senate is likely to vote to restore net neutrality, that may be as far as it goes. The House, with a large GOP majority, is unlikely to bring the measure up for a vote. Should the measure somehow make it to President Trump's desk, he's unlikely to sign it since he is on the record as agreeing with the FCC's action.

But Schumer says the Senate vote will not be a wasted effort. He believes the issue will energize Democratic voters in the midterm elections and help the party capture seats currently held by Republicans.

“A vote against this resolution will be a vote to protect large corporations and special interests, leaving the American public to pay the price,” Schumer said.

“There is nowhere to hide, and there are no excuses. You are either for a free and open internet or you are not,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet. “This bill will get every member of the Senate on the record as either supporting or opposing net neutrality.”

Repeal is a long process

In December, the FCC voted to overturn a regulation put in place in 2015, codifying net neutrality as official policy. The policy said internet service providers (ISP) had to treat all content the same. It couldn't favor one type over another or charge some content providers more than others.

The FCC's new regulation, effectively eliminating net neutrality as the internet's governing policy, has still not taken effect, providing Democrats this narrow opening. The FCC cannot finalize its new rule until it submits it to the Office of Management and Budget for formal approval.

Next, the FCC is also required to provide a timeline for the new policy to go into effect. That process may be complicated by Washington and several other states, which have drawn up their own net neutrality laws.

They admit it's a longshot, but supporters of net neutrality think there's a chance to salvage the concept that internet service providers (ISP) must treat all content the same.

Reuters reports Senate Democrats have secured 50 votes to subject the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rollback of net neutrality to the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress a chance or overturn executive branch regulations.

With the prolonged absence of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) due to illness, Democrats now think they would prevail on a 50-49 vote.

Democrats are joined by a handful of large technology companies -- such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Etsy -- that are urging their users to lobby lawmakers. Users are getting a special message from these sites today when they log in, asking that they call their local representatives.

Narrow window of opportunity

Net neutrality supporters say a window of opportunity still exists because the FCC has not moved to finalize its new rule that overturns the old rule. It must submit its new rule to the Office of Management and Budget for formal approval.

Next, the FCC is required to provide a timeline for the changes to take effect. Complicating matters is a move by Washington, and several other states, to draw up their own net neutrality laws.

Late last month, Fortune reported that some FCC critics suspect the agency is dragging its feet in order to draw up its own net neutrality rules that would favor large ISPs. A revised federal neutrality rule could then arguably supersede rules passed at the state level.

Victory in the Senate next week might not be enough, however. Backers of the original policy would also have to win in the GOP-controlled House, then persuade President Trump to sign it.

That's why tech companies are urging users to pressure House members in an effort to convince GOP lawmakers that saving net neutrality might be a very good survival strategy for the fall's midterm elections.

Thousands of websites on May 9 will go “red” in an effort to reinstate net neutrality laws. Etsy, Tumblr, NetFlix, and OkCupid are among the sites that have joined the “go red” campaign sponsored by BattleForTheNet.

Organizers behind the campaign say that on May 9, a “red alert” or a red plug-in will appear before users can access a participating site’s homepage. The notice will urge users to contact their lawmaker on the day that Congress is scheduled to vote on a measure that could bring back net neutrality.

The Federal Communications Commission last year voted 3-2 to gut net neutrality rules that digital rights and consumer advocates said had allowed for a free and open internet. The effects of the reversal have not yet been implemented or seen because the FCC is still rewriting the regulations.

Lawmakers and advocates are now racing against the FCC to undo last year’s vote. Under The Congressional Review Act, Congress can strike down any new rule with a majority vote, and some lawmakers are hoping that they can use that authority on May 9 to reinstate net neutrality.

“The FCC voted to kill net neutrality and let ISPs like Comcast and Verizon ruin the Internet with throttling, censorship, and new fees,” BattleForTheNet says.

Consumers can pretty much kiss net neutrality goodbye. The Obama-era "Open Internet Order" ended Monday and the "Restoring Internet Freedom Order" took over.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai originally introduced the Restoring Internet Freedom Order in December, and it passed by a single vote of the FCC’s commissioners. Congress tried to overturn the order but came up short.

Net neutrality levied heavy regulations on internet service providers (ISP) by requiring them to treat all internet traffic the same. It prevented ISPs from charging more for access to certain content or stifling the speed at which content was delivered.

"In place of that heavy-handed framework, the FCC is returning to the traditional light-touch framework that was in place until 2015," wrote the FCC in a press release. "Moreover, the FCC today also adopted robust transparency requirements that will empower consumers as well as facilitate effective government oversight of broadband providers’ conduct."

Who wins and who loses?

For an ISP, the repeal of net neutrality is like winning the lottery. With the new law in place, these companies have the authority to decide what content consumers can access, plus reap the financial rewards of that control.

For the consumer, it’s a different story. Net neutrality ensured a level playing field where everyone had access to the same internet services and experiences. Now, given the fact that there’s only one major broadband provider is more than half of the United States, those sole providers can dictate what a consumer pays, the content they can get, and the speed at which they get it.

There’s no way to foretell the future, but the FCC has shown that its viewpoint on the internet can shift from one administration to another.

"Net neutrality was essential for our economy; it was essential to preserve freedom and openness, both for economic reasons and free speech reasons," said Julius Genachowski, FCC commissioner in the Obama administration.

All is not lost

There appears to be a few ISPs riding into this battle wearing a white hat. Take Comcast for example. David L. Cohen, Comcast’s Senior Executive Vice President, went on record saying that this change is not the end of net neutrality.

“Despite repeated distortions and biased information, as well as misguided, inaccurate attacks from detractors, our Internet service is not going to change. Comcast customers will continue to enjoy all of the benefits of an open Internet today, tomorrow, and in the future. Period," he said.

States and communities can still have a say in this matter, too. New York governor Andrew Cuomo took a stand for the little guy and signed an executive order stating that "the Internet is an essential service that should be available to all New Yorkers." With that order, Cuomo banned New York State's government from entering into any agreement with an ISP unless that ISP agreed to the fundamentals of net neutrality.

Several other governors -- including Washington, Montana, Vermont, New Jersey, and Hawaii -- have also signed executive orders to preserve net neutrality rules and an additional 30+ states have proposed legislation that would keep those rules in place.

On top of those efforts, there are 22 state attorneys general who’ve come together to block the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality.

At the grassroots level, the activist group Fight for the Future has nearly 25,000 signatures in a petition asking legislators to defend net neutrality and "protect the free and open Internet for generations to come."

A prospective net neutrality bill in the California state legislature would ban payments for the type of data cap exemptions that carriers like AT&T and Verizon have imposed on its internet customers.

The state’s lawmakers are taking an aggressive stance for the sake of consumers and staring down the Trump administration’s recent rollback of the free and open internet -- one that users have known since 2015 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in favor of net neutrality and the law went into effect.

When the FCC originally created its principles of “network neutrality,” the agency said the move was meant to “preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet” and “to promote the continued development of the Internet."

The FCC’s move at the time piggybacked Congress’ feeling that the internet had educational and informational importance and that it represented “a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity."

Lawmakers also said that net neutrality played “an important role in the economy, as an engine for productivity growth and cost savings."

California has consumers’ backs

The California bill (SB 822) -- introduced by state senator Scott Wiener -- is even more comprehensive than the original protections. Wiener’s proposal “prohibits any practice that hinders or manipulates consumer access to the Internet to favor certain types of content, services, or devices over others.”

In no uncertain terms, Wiener’s bill says it would prevent “blocking or speeding up or slowing down of favored data, paid prioritization, charging services (whether businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, advocacy organizations, etc.) access fees to reach certain consumers, and economic discrimination practices that distort consumer choice.”

“An open Internet is essential to maintaining our democracy, growing our economy, protecting consumers, and preserving critical health, safety, and energy services,” Senator Wiener said in a blog post on Wednesday.

“Late last year, when the FCC made the disastrous decision to repeal net neutrality, I announced I would pursue legislation to protect net neutrality in California,” Wiener said. “Over the last two months, I’ve been working with civil rights and privacy advocates, public policy experts and lawyers, former state and federal commissioners, and business leaders to craft the strongest and most comprehensive set of net neutrality protections in the country.”

Zero-rating and how it affects the internet user

Specifically targeted in the bill is something called “zero-rating,” a method of providing internet access without any costs under certain conditions, such as by only permitting access to certain websites or by subsidizing a company’s internet service with advertising.

For example, an internet provider might choose to “zero-rate” its own services in order to gain a competitive advantage. A case-in-point was what Comcast did with its “Stream TV” on-demand video service. If a customer watched shows via that service, it wasn’t counted towards Comcast’s data caps, but content from competitors like Netflix did.

Other programs like T-Mobile's BingeOn and Music Freedom allowed users to stream unlimited amounts of audio and video from select services, although it slowed down a user’s video connection if they used BingeOn. While there was no built-in ban on zero-rating, the fact that the provider offered a way to opt-out prevented it from violating the no-throttling rule. When a customer opted-out, the audio/video would stream at full quality, but it would count against the user’s data cap.

Zero-rating has been a thorn in the side of Congress, the consumer, and thousands of small ISPs for a while, and it is thought to be one of the sticking points in the Comcast-AT&T merger. In the situation of small ISPs that were bringing broadband to underserved rural areas, the argument was that since those providers didn’t own the content, it lacked the muscle to negotiate fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory access to content.

Senator Wiener’s California-directed proposal comes less than a week after a federal judicial panel decided to give the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) repeal of net neutrality an appeals hearing. 

Last week, Washington became the first state to pass a net neutrality law, one identical in scope to the proposed California law.

Washington, home to tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, is the first state to pass a net neutrality law, negating the federal government's rollback of that internet-guiding policy.

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formalized a long-standing policy with rules against blocking legal content, throttling traffic, and using paid prioritization for some traffic. In December, the FCC reversed these net neutrality rules and last month published its new order in the Federal Register.

Washington’s new law, House Bill 2282, reinstates those net neutrality rules at the state level and protects citizens in the state from manipulated broadband speeds and measures that would limit certain types of content.

First in the nation

“Washington will be the first state in the nation to preserve the open internet,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said during a bill signing ceremony. “We’ve seen the power of an open internet. It allows a student in Washington to connect with researchers all around the world — or a small business to compete in the global marketplace. It’s allowed the free flow of information and ideas in one of the greatest demonstrations of free speech in our history.”

The law means that national internet service providers (ISP) may have to have one set of operating policies for Washington and another for the other states in which they operate. If other states follow Washington's lead, ISPs in those states would also operate under different rules.

“Internet service providers cannot be allowed to substitute their money-motivated judgment on how you spend your time online," said Sarah Bird, CEO of Seattle-based search engine optimization company Moz. "Our internet economy is the envy of the world. Washington lawmakers are helping make sure that remains true.”

National efforts continue

Washington's action comes amid national efforts to overturn the FCC's new order. Those efforts are following both legislative and judicial paths.

With the publishing of the FCC's order in the Federal Register late last month, Congress has 60 days in which to pass a resolution of disapproval that would reverse the FCC action. Supporters are a single vote short in the Senate but have more ground to make up in the House.

Opponents of the FCC action are also suing the agency and asking the courts to reverse the order. Consumer advocates, joined by major technology companies, are challenging the legality of the FCC's action.

In the latest suit, the plaintiffs argue that the Administrative Procedure Act bars federal agencies from “arbitrary and capricious” changes to existing policy and rules.

In late February, 23 state attorneys general filed suit in federal court to restore net neutrality as a national policy. That raises the possibility that at least a few of the states might take action, just as Washington did, to restore the policy within their boundaries.

On Thursday, the FCC is expected to publish its December order overturning net neutrality rules, sources told Reuters.

The official publication of the measure in the Federal Register will mark the start of a 60-day window of time that Congress has to vote on whether to overturn the decision to scrap net neutrality rules.

Once published, state attorneys general and advocacy groups will also be able to sue in a bid to block the order from taking effect.

In December, the FCC voted 3 to 2 to overturn net neutrality laws, which stop internet service providers (ISPs) from speeding up or slowing down internet traffic or charging more for certain content.

One vote short

U.S. Senate Democrats said in January that 50 senators have backed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to preserve the rules -- one vote short of the 51 the measure needs to pass the Senate.

In an effort to get the support of one more Republican, net neutrality activists and tech companies are planning an online protest next week called Operation: #OneMoreVote, which aims to reverse the FCC's repeal of net neutrality by convincing lawmakers to sign onto the CRA.

But even if Democrats win a majority in the Senate, a repeal would also require wading through GOP resistance in the House of Representatives, and President Trump would still need to sign it into law.

Rolling back Obama-era net neutrality rules would mark a victory for ISPs like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon since it would give them control over how consumers connect to online content.

The December FCC order will be made public on Wednesday and formally published on Thursday, according to Reuters.

Congressional supporters of net neutrality continue to press the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to explain its decision to roll back the long-standing rule governing the internet.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the 24 Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee raised a number of pointed questions about how the record number of public comments on net neutrality were handled, and whether any of them were even considered.

The FCC received more than 24 million public comments on its plan to overturn the principle that the internet is a "common carrier" and cannot discriminate against content by favoring one type over another through price or speed.

Net neutrality was formally adopted as a regulation in 2015, but the standard had been followed from the beginning, since early internet traffic traveled over telephone lines.

Fraudulent comments

The lawmakers point out that some of the comments have been identified as fraudulent, using made up names. Some, they say, came from Russian email addresses.

"The Commission has a responsibility under the Administrative Procedure Act to review and fully respond to significant comments filed in the record," the lawmakers wrote. "When taking any agency action, the FCC bears the burden that its analysis is supported by the record, and that it has fully engaged with the American public."

To that end, the members of Congress want to know how the FCC reviewed and processed the huge number of comments. Noting that the agency said it disregarded comments that were "devoid of substance," the letter asks how that determination was made.

Noting that FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a net neutrality supporter, has said no comments from consumers were included in the final Order, the letter asks why not. It also asks why the FCC has refused to work with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's investigation of the fraudulent use of consumers' identities.

The letter even points out that some of the House members signing the letter filed net neutrality comments and asks why none of the points they raised were addressed in the final Order.

Lobbying Congress

Meanwhile, net neutrality supporters are pushing Congress to take the initiative to restore the regulation. They've launched #OneMoreVote, an internet-wide day of action on Feb. 27.

They're urging supporters to lobby lawmakers on that day, hoping to secure one additional vote in the Senate to pass a Resolution of Disapproval of the FCC order.

“The FCC was wrong to repeal the Net Neutrality protections. Everyone knows that, which is why we’ve seen incredible momentum behind the national movement to restore fundamental rights to internet users,” said Free Press Action Fund Campaign Director Candace Clement.

Democrats in the Senate say they are just one vote short of being able to overturn the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) rollback of net neutrality last month.

The FCC voted to remove the Obama Administration's designation of the internet as a common carrier public utility. That 2015 finding required internet service providers (ISP) to treat all internet traffic the same, formally establishing the principle of net neutrality.

Since then, a number of organizations and companies have announced plans to sue the FCC in an effort to have its action overturned. But it turns out net neutrality supporters may have a simpler and faster path.

Under federal law, Congress has 60 days to pass a resolution of disapproval to overturn a government agency regulation. In the Senate, the resolution cannot be filibustered, meaning it requires only a simple majority in both chambers to pass.

One vote short in the Senate

Senate Democrats say a proposed resolution of disapproval of the FCC action now has the support of 50 lawmakers and needs just one more vote to pass.

“It’s no surprise that more Washington lawmakers are listening at last to the strong, bipartisan backing for Net Neutrality," said Free Press Action Fund Policy Director Matt Wood, in a statement emailed to ConsumerAffairs. "These lawmakers have been hearing from constituents on the left and right who are united against the Trump FCC’s attack on the open internet."

The resolution would also have to pass the House, where Republicans -- who have generally been unenthusiastic about Net Neutrality -- have a larger majority. But Wood says Net Neutrality has increasingly become a bipartisan issue, with a number of Republican lawmakers and their constituents supporting it.

"The consensus is resonating in the Senate, which keeps hitting new milestones like this one, and in the House of Representatives, where people in favor of rejecting the FCC’s December decision have lit up phone lines," Wood said.

One million calls to Congress

Wood said constituents have already logged more than one million calls to Congressional offices to voice support for net neutrality. Wood says lawmakers in both parties pay attention to things like that.

“Regardless of party affiliation, all members of Congress should stand with those who’ve elected them and restore the 2015 protections that give internet users control over their online choices,” he said.

Countdown has not yet started

The 60-day countdown clock has not yet started. It begins when the FCC delivers its final rules, something that isn't expected to happen for several weeks.

As for the task of persuading enough Republicans in the House to join Democrats to overturn the FCC action, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), author of the Senate resolution, believes the political tide is running in net neutrality's favor.

"There is a tsunami of Congressional and grassroots support to overturn the FCC’s partisan and misguided decision on net neutrality,” Markey said. "Republicans now have a clear choice -- be on the right side of history and stand with the American people who support a free and open internet, or hold hands with the special interests who want to control the internet for their own profit."

In pushing the repeal of Net Neutrality, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the rule amounts to needless regulation. Pai says it's unfair to hold ISPs to a higher standard than websites such as Facebook.

The Internet Association, whose members include some of the nation's largest technology companies, has announced its intention to join a lawsuit aimed at restoring net neutrality.

In December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overturned a 2015 rule that established internet service providers (ISP) as common carriers, requiring them to treat all internet traffic equally.

Free Press and other consumer groups are preparing a lawsuit against the FCC in an effort to overturn its December action. Internet Association President & CEO Michael Beckerman said tech companies are joining the suit because they have a big stake in the future of the internet.

'Defies the will of the majority'

“The final version of Chairman Pai’s rule, as expected, dismantles popular net neutrality protections for consumers," Beckerman said in a statement. "This rule defies the will of a bipartisan majority of Americans and fails to preserve a free and open internet."

Internet Association members include Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and Netflix. Etsy, also a member, said in a statement that it intends to challenge the FCC ruling in a separate lawsuit.

The Internet Association said it will pursue a legal remedy, though it would prefer a legislative solution. Barbara Cherry, a communications law expert and Indiana University professor, says both avenues are viable.

"Because this was done by FCC order and rules, there is the potential that Congress could exercise its authority under the Congressional Review Act by passing a resolution to repeal what the FCC did,” Cherry told ConsumerAffairs in a December interview. “It's filibuster-proof and doesn't require a signature of the President."

However, Republicans currently control Congress and are generally less supportive of net neutrality than Democrats, making it unlikely that they’ll act.

'Seriously and significantly flawed'

Cherry says the legal avenue may hold more promise of success, at least in the short term. That's because she sees several flaws in the legal reasoning behind the FCC order.

"When you look at the notice of proposed rulemaking, the underlying opening of the proceeding had misrepresentation of history, law, and the engineering involved with these networks," she said. "It's seriously and significantly flawed."

If groups challenging the FCC are successful in court, she says the FCC could appeal the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"So I think there's a very good chance of reversing this on appeal, but that just kicks it back to the FCC again," she said. "The only party that can settle this in the long run is Congress."

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3–2 Thursday to repeal net neutrality rules for internet use put in place by the Obama administration.

The move is widely viewed as a major victory for large internet service providers (ISP) like Verizon and Comcast, and a setback for internet content providers. But what it means for consumers leaves to be seen.

Aram Sinnreich, associate professor of communication at American University, expects to see higher costs for content, more advertising, less innovation, and less competition from poorly-funded startups.

"However, there are more far-reaching and consequential effects that we might not notice right away," Sinnreich told ConsumerAffairs. "ISPs now have an incentive to block or throttle traffic using encryption, such as VPNs and Tor, which could have negative effects ranging from silencing political dissidents to isolating culturally marginalized users and groups, from LGBT to the disabled."

In short, he says ISPs will have a lot more censorship power than in the past. Barbara Cherry, a communications law expert and Indiana University professor, says the internet was considered a common carrier–with built-in consumer protections–long before the FCC formalized that status two years ago.

Now that providers are no longer considered common carriers, Cherry says ISPs can pretty much do what they want.

No options

"The effect to consumers of this order is you cannot go to the FCC for help, you don't have any state jurisdiction to help you, and you can't go to court because you signed a contract with an arbitration clause," Cherry said in an interview.

The basic principle of net neutrality is that ISPs must treat all legal internet content the same. They can't favor one content provider with faster speeds just because it pays the ISP a premium price.

For example, AT&T is trying to purchase Time Warner, a content provider. Under net neutrality regulations, it would be illegal to favor its own content with faster speeds while slowing down the connection speed when an AT&T customer accessed a rival streaming service. 

Without net neutrality, it can do just that and more.

Prior to the FCC vote, ISPs were also barred from slowing down internet connections for consumers who visit particular websites or apps. In short, ISPs were blocked from prioritizing the content that moves across their networks -- although ISPs have been quick to point out that they own those networks.

Critics among tech companies and consumer groups have warned this move threatens competition. Start-up web companies might be at a disadvantage against their larger, legacy competitors if they can't pay the ISPs for faster, easier access.

Legal challenge

Free Press, a consumer group, has announced it plans to file a lawsuit against the FCC to reverse its action. It also joined other groups in petitioning Congress to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCC's action.

“Net neutrality is the nondiscrimination law of the internet," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said in a statement. "It’ll be just as necessary tomorrow as it is today."

Cherry says she thinks a court challenge is the best hope for net neutrality supporters to reinstate the policy, and says there may be firm legal grounds for that.

After Thursday's vote, tech giants ranging from Facebook to Google issued statements expressing their disappointment. Business opposition was not limited to Silicon Valley, however, as top real estate officials warned the FCC action would hurt their industry, now heavily dependent on the internet.

Realtors concerned

"FCC's rollback of the Open Internet Order will mean higher costs and slower service for millions of American consumers and businesses," said National Association of Realtors President Elizabeth Mendenhall. "Realtors have strong concerns about what that might mean for the way consumers search for homes online and real estate is transacted."

Cherry says prior to 2002, access to the internet was considered common carriage service because it was accessed over telephone lines. The problem, she says, began when cable companies that provide internet services began to argue they weren't common carriers.

When the FCC ruled in 2015 that broadband providers are, in fact, common carriers, many thought the issue was settled. The FCC made clear Thursday it isn't.

"We are entering a new era in which, for the first time, there is no presumption of a regulatory mandate for net neutrality," Sinnreich said.

Early this morning, a group of about 100 people were gathered in the freezing weather outside FCC Chair Ajit Pai’s office, doing anything they could to lobby him before Thursday’s planned vote to gut net neutrality.

"I think it’s devastating that we have an FCC chair who is just willfully ignoring the facts, the law, the people, the companies, pretty much everyone except the phone and cable companies,” says Candace Clemente, a campaign director with the pro-net neutrality advocacy group Free Press.

Not taking net neutrality seriously

Clemente spoke to ConsumerAffairs shortly after returning back from the protest. She did not see Pai make any attempt to address the crowd, at least while she was there. His social media indicates that he may have other concerns at the moment.

“Restaurant patron arrested after causing ‘disturbance inside when she did not receive what she believed to be an adequate amount of #Sriracha sauce,” Pai wrote on Twitter this morning, sharing an article about a Sriracha-related arrest to his followers.

Clemente -- who points out that Pai most certainly used the open internet to find that story -- sounds unsurprised to learn of the tweet.

A video that leaked last week shows Pai, a former Verizon attorney, making jokes about being a shill for the company, seemingly making light of real concerns consumers and advocacy groups have shared. Advocates say that gutting net neutrality would benefit cable powerhouses at the expense of consumers and companies that do business on the internet.

"I feel like that tweet is really in line with that attitude, of not taking it seriously, treating it like a joke,” Clemente tells ConsumerAffairs.

Consumers urged to make their voices heard

Advocates warn that the issue is not a joke. Everyone from the ACLU to Tim Berners-Lee‏, the man credited with creating the World Wide Web, describes the FCC’s planned vote to kill the current rules as catastrophic to the state of the internet today.

Clemente says the most effective way for consumers to make their voice heard right now is to contact their representatives, because Congress could potentially overturn the FCC vote under the Congressional Review Act.

As it stands, if the FCC goes ahead with gutting net neutrality Thursday, immediate aftermath is uncertain. Many pundits predict the FCC will move forward, despite some commissioners who promise to vote against the consensus.

Implementing the new regulations could take anywhere from one day to one year -- it all depends on how long it takes the FCC to update the Federal Register, Clemente says. Advocacy groups also plan on suing the FCC to overturn the ruling should it not go in their favor.

Meanwhile, Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the FCC commissioners who plans to vote against killing net neutrality, tweeted from her office this morning that the internet at the FCC was temporarily down. “I think we can call this some fierce irony,” she wrote.

On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and chairman Ajit Pai vote on the controversial move to repeal net neutrality rules that have been in place since 2015. 

As we detailed in an earlier article, existing net neutrality rules ensure that your internet service provider (ISP) cannot manipulate your pipeline to the internet by gating off legal content or interfering with your Internet speed.   

The reason ISPs cannot control that pipeline is the Internet’s classification under Title II in the Communications Act of 1934, making it a “common carrier” for communication purposes.

Pai and the FCC’s vote on the “Restoring Internet Freedom” proposal will likely weaken these net neutrality laws to deregulate much of the Internet. 

The hope, at least for Pai, is that this will give smaller ISPs more of a chance to compete with larger companies.

However, consumers and small business owners are skeptical of this prospect. Many people feel that this move will invest more authority in already powerful ISPs to charge more money for access to legal content or throttle Internet speed if you use certain search engines. 

How do small businesses feel about net neutrality?

Back in June, 40 smaller ISPs sent a letter to the FCC voicing their support for the current laws protecting neutrality. “Without a legal foundation to address the anticompetitive practices of the largest players in the market, the FCC’s current course threatens the viability of competitive entry and competitive viability,” they write.

On Monday, November 27, 2017, another group of Internet companies wrote a similar letter urging Pai to reconsider his position. Companies behind the letter include not only small Internet companies but also companies like Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit.

This decision could further impact smaller businesses that depend on Internet visibility for customers. Even small analog businesses depend on an open Internet to access or sell their services or products. Without net neutrality, larger competitors could easily buy faster lanes from ISPs to get more consumer traffic than smaller businesses.

What to expect if net neutrality ends?

If the vote this December repeals net neutrality laws, ISPs will be able to change how they do business. They could gate off content and services like Netflix, Facebook and Spotify by charging these companies additional internet access fees, which could make consumer prices rise.

There’s no guarantee ISPs would do this, of course, and many have released statements saying they won’t gate off legal content. 

Comcast, for example, has written numerous times that the company will not discriminate against lawful content, though recent changes to this pledge suggest that the company may create paid “fast lanes” for their service.

While predictions of a post-vote internet are purely speculative, we can be sure that the repeal of net neutrality will be a long process. 

Companies in favor of net neutrality can petition to review the FCC’s decision. If companies file lawsuits to review the decision, we could see a long legal battle before any final law is instated. 

It’s hard to tell where the fate of net neutrality will ultimately be decided. Conceivably, the issue could be debated in the Court of Appeals or even the Supreme court if the fight lasts long enough.

So what can you do now?

The vote on December 14 may be one step among many to get rid of current net neutrality laws, but that does not mean it’s a trivial one. 

In fact, Pai recently said that the number of comments the FCC received about net neutrality was so vast that he had to dismiss them outright, largely because some comments were likely the products of spambots and automated messages.

If you have strong feelings about net neutrality, let the FCC know how you feel about net neutrality by contacting your senators and representatives. Tell them that you support or don’t support net neutrality so that your voice can be heard.  

You can contact the FCC directly by following this link. In the “Proceedings” box, type Restoring Internet Freedom (17-108). Then, you can make your comments below. They will be part of FCC’s records of this proceeding.

Net Neutrality can be something of a complex subject, but another poll shows consumers not only understand what it is, they want to keep it.

In short, Net Neutrality holds that internet service providers (ISP) have to treat all web content the same. That means they can't charge extra to sites that use more bandwidth, and they can't favor the content of one site over another.

Some ISPs have protested, saying they've spent millions of dollars building out their networks and should be allowed to manage them as they see fit.

In the latter years of the Obama Administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established Net Neutrality as policy, over the protests of some ISPs.

Change in policy

President Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a long-time critic of Net Neutrality, and under his leadership the FCC has taken steps to reverse the policy. But it might not be either good business or good politics.

A new poll of U.S. consumers has found 74% supporting legislation that enshrines the principals of Net Neutrality -- namely a law enabling consumers to use the internet free from government or corporate censorship, while setting up one set of rules that applies to all internet companies.

The poll suggests consumers are comfortable with Congress taking the issue out of the hands of the FCC and setting the policy in stone.

Permanent Net Neutrality law

"Americans overwhelmingly favor a permanent net neutrality law over FCC regulations that can be changed from administration to administration," said Mike Montgomery, Executive Director of CALinnovates, a non-partisan tech advocacy group based in San Francisco, which conducted the survey.

Previous research has suggested consumers are growing more concerned about Net Neutrality issues, such as potential throttling, blocking, and the creation of so-called fast lanes.

Younger consumers appear to feel more strongly about the legislative route than their older counterparts. In fact, 18 to 29 year-olds were almost twice as likely to support making Net Neutrality the law of the land than continuing to leave the issue up to the FCC.

An analysis of internet rules by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas concludes that rolling back Net Neutrality rules would not just hurt consumers, but small businesses as well.

In 2015 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a set of guidelines that bars Internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast from speeding up, slowing down, or blocking any content, applications, or websites. In other words, all content must be treated equally.

The reasoning behind Net Neutrality is one company's content shouldn't get preferential treatment, just because the company pays a big fee to the ISP.

ISPs have argued that they spend a lot of money building and maintaining their networks, and it's only fair that companies like Netflix, which requires huge amounts of bandwidth, pay extra for the use of that capacity.

Pre-Net Neutrality actions

Challenger, Gray & Christmas said it reviewed internet policies prior to 2015 and found many ISPs, both domestic and foreign, engaged in actions that unfairly affected smaller companies.

It points to the period of 2011 to 2013, when it says AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, which happened to compete with a service in which the ISPs held a stake.

In 2012, it says AT&T announced plans to disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers' iPhones unless they subscribed to more bandwidth, at a higher price.

Internet Privacy Bill

The 2015 Net Neutrality Rule prevents those kinds of actions, but from the start the new chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has targeted Net Neutrality for reversal. John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, notes that President Trump recently signed the "Internet privacy bill," which he says will repeal vital internet-related consumer protections. In the end, he says that hurts businesses.

"The slicing up and selling of the Internet will make it vastly more difficult for companies to remain innovative,” Challenger said. “Not to mention the cost to small businesses and entrepreneurs to have access to the Internet."

Challenger also maintains there is no demand, except from big ISPs, to rollback Net Neutrality. He says polls consistently show that a large majority of people, both Republicans and Democrats, support the concept of Net Neutrality.

When you want to call attention to an issue, you normally assign a day to it.

Yesterday was Net Neutrality Day in America, when the tech world -- or most of it -- tried to mobilize public support against rolling back the previous administration's internet policy.

The problem with these issue days is there seems to be one every other week. Often the public's collective eyes glaze over.

But the message from big internet users like Netflix, Reddit, and GoDaddy was this: a free and open internet, established by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy under the Obama Administration, is in danger of being reversed under the Trump Administration.

Can't play favorites

Net Neutrality is the principle that internet service providers (ISP) cannot favor one company's content over another. For example, it can't allocate faster speeds to an internet company if it pays an extra fee, giving that company an advantage over a competitor who doesn't pay the fee.

The large ISPs, like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, have always maintained that they own their networks and have taken issue with the current policy that treats them like utilities.

According to Daily Variety, the organizers of Net Neutrality Day, which warned consumers the internet was about to get a lot slower and urged them to protest to the FCC and lawmakers, are optimistic. At the very least, they say the FCC will have to respond to all the protests.

Net Neutrality broke into the public consciousness -- sort of -- three years ago when comedian John Oliver did a whole segment on it during his HBO show, a segment that went viral. Take a look, but be warned, it's a premium cable show that doesn't bleep out expletives.

Within a year of that broadcast, the FCC adopted its Net Neutrality policy. Tech companies are hoping their one-day blitz can have a similar effect, and save it.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, with the support of Republican commissioner Michael O'Rielly, has moved to suspend the agency's probe of what are known as “zero rating” programs offered by wireless providers.

Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T had been under investigation due to charges that their individual streaming packages violated the Net Neutrality Rule. All three carriers have programs under which subscribers may stream data from certain sources without it counting against their data allowances.

“The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is closing its investigation into wireless carriers' free-data offerings,” Pai said in a statement. “These free-data plans have proven to be popular among consumers, particularly low-income Americans, and have enhanced competition in the wireless marketplace. Going forward, the Federal Communications Commission will not focus on denying Americans free data.”

GOP commissioner Michael O'Rielly backed the move, saying the FCC should be supporting wireless providers in what he called “permissionless innovation.”

Just the first step

“While this is just a first step, these companies, and others, can now safely invest in and introduce highly popular products and services without fear of Commission intervention based on newly invented legal theories,” O'Rielly said.

But Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, currently the lone Democrat on the Commission, objected – not just to the speedy reversal of a pillar of Obama administration communication policy, but the manner in which it was done.

“It is a basic principle of administrative procedure that actions must be accompanied by reasons for that action, else that action is unlawful,” Clyburn said. “Yet that is exactly what multiple Bureaus have done today.”

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality holds that internet service providers may not favor one type of content over another. The FCC was investigating all three companies to determine if their zero rating plans violated that principal.

The agency Friday sent letters to all three companies, informing them that the inquiry has been closed.

Amid a flurry of action Friday, the FCC also reversed another Obama administration move to allow nine internet providers to participate in a federal program to provide subsidized service to low-income households.

The consumer group Free Press joined Clyburn in criticizing both the action and the way it was carried out. Policy Director Matt Wood characterized Pai's initiatives as “strong-armed tactics.”

Net neutrality is one of those issues that might start a bar-room brawl in Washington, D.C., but it's not something that gets the blood boiling in most precincts of the country. Nevertheless, it and related measures handled by the Federal Communications Commission are pocketbook issues that aren't far behind the price of gas and mortgage rates for American families.

The Obama Administration's FCC has taken an activist stance on Internet matters, choosing to apply regulations to what had for most of its life been a Wild West sort of place, where just about anyone could do just about anything.

Most notably, and most controversially, the FCC in March 2015 voted 3-2 to declare that broadband service was a utility and could therefore be regulated. It imposed rules designed to prohibit carriers from treating some traffic differently from others. 

One of the dissenting votes came from commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican who is generally considered to be the leading candidate to head the commission when the Trump Administration rolls into town. Pai has opposed much of what the FCC has done under current chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat.

Though a Republican, Pai was nominated to the FCC by President Obama in 2011. A Harvard Law graduate, he is the son of immigrants from India and grew up in Parsons, Kansas. 

"Days are numbered"

He is particularly dismissive of the net neutrality regulations and in a speech last week said the rule's "days are numbered."

"I’m hopeful that beginning next year, our general regulatory approach will be a more sober one that is guided by evidence, sound economic analysis, and a good dose of humility," Pai said in his speech to a Free State Foundation luncheon, arguing that the net neutrality rules were adopted without any evidence that they were needed.

"There was no evidence of systemic failure in the Internet marketplace.  As I said at the time, 'One could read the entire document . . . without finding anything more than hypothesized harms.'  Or, in other words, public-utility regulation was a solution that wouldn’t work for a problem that didn’t exist."

Besides net neutrality, Pai is thought to be unsympathetic to plans to break cable systems' monopoly on set-top boxes and to outlaw local regulations banning municipal broadband networks.

Pai singled out the set-top box proposal, which he said was being formulated in the dark.

"Right now, the FCC provides information selectively to favored insiders.  To give one example, if you are in the good graces of the FCC’s leadership, you can receive detailed information about the set-top box proposal.  But if you aren’t, you’re left in the dark," he said.

T-Mobile's "Binge On" promotion has perhaps been popular with consumers but, as we reported in November, critics are increasingly expressing doubts about its legality, 

Now a Stanford Law professor who is a recognized net neutrality expert has weighed in with her opinion. Barbara van Schewick says Binge On is "aptly named – it feels good in the short-term but harms consumers in the long run.”

Schewick's report, “T-Mobile’s Binge On Violates Key Net Neutrality Principles," offers the first comprehensive analysis of the "zero-rating" aspects of Binge On. Zero-rating, which simply means that selected content doesn't count against a user's monthly data cap, has come under scrutiny at the FCC. Policymakers are debating whether this and other "zero-rating" programs violate the Open Internet rules.

“The program limits user choice, distorts competition, stifles innovation, and harms free speech on the Internet. If more ISPs offer similar programs, these harms will only grow worse,” Schewick's report finds.

The report could be a game changer. It finds that Binge On violates key net neutrality principles and most likely violates the FCC’s general conduct rule and the transparency rule. In a moment when the FCC is evaluating the question of zero-rating on a case-by-case basis, these findings could move the agency to open a federal investigation.

Picking winners

The basic problem, as Schewick sees it, is that T-Mobile is picking winners and losers online by making Binge On video more attractive than all other video. Research shows that consumers, not surprisingly, strongly prefer zero-rated content over content that counts against their cap.

In one survey cited by Schewick, 74% of users said that they would be more likely to watch videos offered by a new provider if the content did not count against their monthly bandwidth caps. By making Binge On video more attractive than other video, T-Mobile gives the video providers it adds to Binge On a competitive advantage.

And although consumers generally seem to feel that T-Mobile is doing them a favor, Schewick says that, in fact, T-Mobile is constraining consumer choice. 

Net neutrality protects peoples’ ability to use the applications of their choice, but through Binge On, T-Mobile makes additional bandwidth available to consumers without allowing them to choose how to use that bandwidth. Instead, T-Mobile reserves it only for Binge On video.

For example, customers on T-Mobile’s lowest qualifying plan can watch “unlimited” video from Netflix and other Binge On providers, but not more than 4 1/2 hours of video per month from other providers like Amazon Prime, a Netflix competitor.

Schewick also cites T-Mobile's requirement that Binge On content providers spend "substantial" sums of money to make their feeds technically compatible with T-Mobile's system and says that discriminates against small providers and start-ups. 

"Binge On changes innovation on the Internet as we know it. Until now, innovators could reach people all over the world at low costs. But Binge On requires video providers to work with T-Mobile to join on the program and, in many cases, to change their service to meet the ISP’s technical requirements," she said. "As more and more ISPs develop similar programs, innovators will need to work with ISPs around the world to join their zero-rating programs – all just for an equal chance to compete. Small players, non-commercial speakers, and start-ups without the resources to work with numerous ISPs will be left behind."

T-Mobile's other zero-rating program, Music Freedom, does similar damage to the usic industry, Schewick said. 

Schewick also notes that Binge On video is not actually “unlimited:” If customers reach their monthly data cap through other Internet uses, they won't be able to watch any more video that month.

"T-Mobile’s advertising misleads customers and likely violates the FCC’s transparency rule," she concludes.

T-Mobile customers have been able to stream music from major sources without having to worry about exceeding their data caps, and this year, have been able to view virtually unlimited video as well.

The carrier's “Binge-On” program last month began to include Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go as sources of binging. Noticeably absent is YouTube.

The Google-owned video content provider has aired its complaint to The Wall Street Journal. In a statement to the newspaper, the company says consumers are benefiting from reduced data charges but “that doesn't justify throttling all video services, especially without explicit user consent."

No HD YouTube viewing

According to the statement, YouTube is particularly irked that T-Mobile customers on the Binge On plan aren't able to watch HD versions of YouTube videos. Instead, they get a 480p version.

YouTube cites two issues – T-Mobile customers get poor quality YouTube videos and the data counts toward their bandwidth limits. Second, it claims T-Mobile enrolls its customers in Binge On without asking them first.

This is actually an area under study by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has adopted a net neutrality policy, meaning a network can't favor one provider's content over another.

Net Neutrality

In February, the FCC adopted a Net Neutrality Rule, specifically prohibiting service providers from creating “fast lanes” and charging content providers extra to use them. In taking the action, the Commission declared that broadband Internet service should be classified as a public utility, like telephone service, bringing it under tighter regulation.

Earlier this month, the FCC asked T-Mobile, as well as other networks that offer special rates on streaming, to provide more information about how those services work.

At the end of October, we reported that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was going to be investigating three of his state’s largest broadband providers to see if consumers were getting what they paid for when it came to Internet speeds. The investigation is ongoing, but now the state is asking consumers for help.

In order to see whether or not promised Internet speeds are up to par, the state is asking consumers to test their connections and send in their results. This will allow the state to gather vital missing data that will allow their investigation to move forward.

Filling in the gaps

Schneiderman and his office are asking volunteers for help because the available FCC test information that his team has received may not tell the whole story. In the FCC report, connections are measured only by how quickly data moves across a user’s ISP network – a distance referred to as the “last mile.”

This is problematic because it leaves out information about how the speed is measured across other interconnected networks. Some have asserted that Internet speeds suffer during this process depending on whether or not broadband providers have connected with long-haul Internet traffic carriers.

By having volunteers send in their reports, Schneiderman and his office hope that the information that they’re missing can be filled in so that they can move forward.

Submitting information safely

In order to test their connections and send in a report, consumers can visit a third-party website called InternetHealthTest.org. All a visitor of the site needs to do is press “Start Test” to begin generating a report.

After a report has been generated, consumers can visit this site to take a screen shot of their results. The site provides a step-by-step process on how to submit a report, including information on how to take a screen shot and what to do if you have a Mac versus a PC.

The advantage of collecting information this way is that it protects the privacy of those who are submitting information. The site does not require any personal information, such as browser history or an IP address – though the attached form does ask for a name and zip code.

Schneiderman is hopeful that these tests will help New Yorkers get the Internet speeds they deserve. “New Yorkers should get the Internet speeds they pay for. Too many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another. . . By conducting these tests, consumers can uncover whether they are receiving the Internet speeds they have paid for,” he said. 

The need to stay connected is more important than ever these days – just ask any teenager who doesn't have access to their phone or computer for a few hours. This is why it can be completely infuriating when your connection to the Internet isn't working properly.

But it could be even more infuriating if you find out that your Internet provider is not giving you the broadband connection you paid for. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is setting out to determine if that is the case in his state. He will be probing to see if three major Internet providers are duping consumers by charging them for faster broadband speeds that they are failing to deliver on.

“New Yorkers deserve the Internet speeds they pay for. But, it turns out, many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another,” said Schneiderman.

Concerns about Internet speed

In order to determine if this claim holds water, letters have been sent to three top Internet providers in New York: Verizon Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., and Time Warner Cable Inc. The letters ask each company to provide copies of the disclosures that they have given to customers, as well as copies of any tests that have been performed on their Internet speeds.

Concerns over Internet speeds began after a 2014 study was conducted by Measurement Lab Consortium, or M-Lab. Researchers found that the Internet service for many consumers tended to suffer when broadband providers (i.e. the companies listed above) connected with long-haul Internet traffic carriers.

“Internet service provider interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer Internet performance – sometimes a severely negative impact,” concluded the researchers. They added that business relationships tended to be a major influencer for when problems would occur, rather than any technical issues.

Taking cues from the study and consumer complaints about their Internet service, the attorney general's office launched their investigation. They are particularly interested in Internet speeds for “the last mile” from Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. “The last mile” refers specifically to the point where the telecommunication chain reaches a consumer's device.

Confident and cooperative

Each company has responded to the probe with confidence over the service that they provide. “We're confident that we provide our customers the speeds and services we promise them and look forward to working with the AG to resolve this matter,” said Bobby Amirshahi, spokesman for Time Warner Cable.

Charlie Schueler, spokesman for Cablevision, added that his company's Optimum Online service “consistently surpasses advertised broadband speeds, including in FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and internal tests.” Verizon's spokesman echoes these sentiments about their own service and has expressed that the AG's office will have their full cooperation.  

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has cleared the way for implementation of new net neutrality rules, allowing the rules to go into effect today.

"The Internet is the most dynamic platform for free speech ever 
invented and our Internet economy is the envy of the world. Sustaining this platform, which keeps us innovative, fierce, and creative, should not be a choice – it should be an obligation," said Jessica Rosenworcel, a Federal Communications Commission member.

The new rules basically treat the Internet like a public utility and prohibit carriers from blocking or delaying traffic. The rules had been challenged by the United States Telecom Association, which represents AT&T, Verizon and other carriers.

The FCC voted 3-2 in February to enact the new rules which are intended to prevent carriers from favoring some content providers over others. Previous attempts by the FCC to enshrine the net neutrality principle were overturned by the courts and today's ruling by a three-judge appeals court panel is not likely to end the dispute.

The telecom association has already asked the court to speed up the proceedings and further hearings are a certainty.

The carriers are arguing that the FCC's rules are arbitrary and unnecessary. Consumer groups, however, contend that smaller content providers and future start-ups could be squished by onerous fees that might be imposed by the carriers at some future date. 

“The news today from the D.C. Circuit Court is clear: the Internet is open for business for everyone. I applaud the court for its decision to deny industry’s requested stay of the FCC’s Open Internet order," said Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass). "Consumers, innovators, activists and entrepreneurs – anyone who counts on the Internet to connect with the world around them – will fully benefit from these essential net neutrality protections."

It was just a few weeks ago that Comcast bowed to opposition from consumer activists and skepticism from regulators and withdrew its offer for Time Warner Cable.

Now Charter is buying Time Warner for about $55 billion and predicts the deal will be approved because a combined Charter/Time Warner would be a stronger competitor for Comcast.

Comcast, with 22 million subscribers, is the biggest cable and Internet provider in the country and has a knack for making enemies. Charter, by comparison, is a mere pup with about 6 million subscribers. Bright House, owned by the Newhouse interests, which would also be acquired by Charter, has about 2.5 million. The three companies combined would have about 20 million subscribers.

Charter is seen by the people who make their livings generating spin about deals like this as more consumer-friendly, perhaps because it's smaller. It's not that small, though. Its largest shareholder is billionaire John Malone who has enjoyed a lengthy career building gigantic media enterprises.

Back to the future

There is a certain method to this apparent madness. If you look back a few years to 2013, you'll find that Charter was then trying to acquire -- yes -- Time Warner. Time Warner said no and Charter's bid escalated into an attempted hostile takeover.

Time Warner rebuffed Charter by leaping into the waiting arms of Comcast and the invisible hand of public opinion manipulation went to work stoking up opposition to the Comcast deal.

The argument went something like this: Comcast will be oh so big that it will squash such small competitors as Netflix in the fast-congealing gob of cable and streaming video.

Activist groups like Public Knowledge and Consumers Union took to the barricades, warning that the sky would fall if Comcast's evil empire grew any larger. Charter's slightly smaller evil empire? No problem.

“It appears much less of an antitrust concern than the Comcast deal,” said Public Knowledge president Gene Kimmelman in a Washington Post report.

Squash newcomers

It seems to escape everyone's attention that Malone, 74, has spent the past several years preaching the gospel of cable consolidation as a weapon against the emerging threat that streaming video represents to cable interests. Cable operators must join forces to stamp out the newcomers, in other words. 

A combined Charter/Time Warner may have only a size 11 boot but that will likely be just about as effective as the size 12 boot Comcast/Time Warner would have brought to the party. 

Meanwhile, the largest cable provider is about to be none of the above. The AT&T/DirecTV merger appears to be smoothly moving towards completion. Anyone who thinks AT&T will deal gently with intruders on its turf should do a little research into the history of the telecommunications business.

Deservedly or not, cable TV companies have a bad reputation these days. Multiple bad reputations, in fact: one bad reputation for high prices, another alleging poor-to-nonexistent customer service, a reputation for limited or inflexible program offerings, and others.

It's bad enough that the cable industry is trying to distance itself from the very word “cable” and rebrand itself as something else.

Last week, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) held its annual trade show in Chicago, a trade show formerly known as “The Cable Show.” But this year, as Bloomberg initially noted, The Cable Show was renamed “The Internet & Television Expo.”

Michael Powell, the former Federal Communications Commission head who now serves as president of the NCTA, said he “hates” the world “cable” because it's so outdated: “It doesn’t fairly capture what they do.”

Resist the temptation, here, to make snide commentary regarding just which terms would “fairly capture” what the cable companies do. According to Powell, the term “cable company” has “a proud history, but it needs to be retired,” in order to focus on “its future as it's associated with the Internet.”

Uphill climb

And yet, as TechDirt pointed out: “when your entire business revolves around using coaxial cable to deliver Internet and television service, deciding to drop the word in the hopes of forcing a brand refresh might be an uphill climb.”

Yet even if Powell succeeds in his effort to make people completely and utterly forget the word “cable” in this particular context, that doesn't mean they'll forget the complaints that gave the word such a bad reputation in the first place.

For example: last month, after a Minnesota man lost his home after a vicious wind-driven fire destroyed it (plus a couple other homes in his neighborhood), it took a full week plus media attention before Comcast would let the man cancel his Comcast account. As of press time, that story has 12 reader comments posted on it, every one critical of Comcast. One commenter asked:

Is it Comcast or Time Warner that has the worst customer service record in the entire business industry?? If not one, than the other is, and the other is in second place. Soon there will be an alternative to cable, and hopefully this company will go out of business.

Another one said: “Customer service is dead. A moment of silence. Comcast is a constant nose bleed.”

Taken at face value, it's pretty obvious neither of those commenters (nor any other on that story) have any problems with the word “cable,” nor with any of the individual syllables comprising the word; their complaints involve customer service, or the lack thereof.

Or take a gander at any of the 1,268 complaints ConsumerAffairs has collected about Time Warner cable.

On April 25, for example, Reynaldo from San Antonio, Texas had this to say about the company's tech support: “...I had to beg for someone to come out to look at my PC and TV. Finally someone came out and replaced the modem. Service sucks. I would not recommend Time Warner and am considering changing service.”

That same day, Reynaldo's fellow Texan Thomas, from Cedar Park, wrote in with a detailed complaint about Time Warner, ending with: “This is the worst customer service I have ever dealt with. They took my money which I still have not received back, lied to me about 3 scheduled appointments, and have completely wasted my time. I will never even consider doing business with them again....”

“Service sucks.” “Worst customer service.” Memo to Michael Powell and other upstanding members of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association: your bad reputation derives from what you do, not what you call yourself.

A long, long time ago, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission recognized that everybody needed a telephone. So it (and Congress) created something called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which took a little bite from each phone bill and applied it to wiring up remote areas.

Well, the USF still exists and just about every living being has at least one phone by now. But lots of people who live in rural areas are still pretty much locked out of enjoying broadband communications -- no Netflix, really slow Web speeds and other privations.

In fact, according to the FCC’s latest report, nearly 1 in 3 rural Americans lack access to broadband, compared to only 1 in 100 urban Americans. "Broadband" is defined as 10 megabits per second (Mbps) down/1 Mbps up.

8.5 million  

So, trying to catch up with the times, the FCC is offering the largest telecom providers $1.7 billion in subsidies to expand broadband to over 8.5 million rural Americans.

“Today’s offer of $1.675 billion for rural broadband deployment will connect millions of rural Americans who lack access to modern high-speed Internet service,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “The Connect America Fund is tackling the rural digital divide so that all Americans can have access to the jobs, education and opportunities provided by broadband, no matter where they live.”

Carriers -- meaning telephone companies -- have 120 days to decide to apply for the funding. In areas where the funding is declined, it will be available to competitive carriers like cable operators.

The funding will be available in areas (actually census blocks) "(a) where the cost of providing service according to our cost model exceeds $52.50 a month, and (b) that are not served by unsubsidized competitors offering service at speeds of at least 4 Mpbs downloads/1 Mbps uploads."

The Federal Communications Commission has voted 3-2 to require “net neutrality” rather than allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to create and charge extra for “fast lanes.”

Specifically, the FCC voted that broadband Internet service should henceforth be classified as a public utility, similar to telephone lines, with ISPs becoming utilities, as “the phone company” has been for generations. The FCC's proposal would cover not just home Internet connections, but mobile devices as well.

Discord on the Commission

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who supports net neutrality, said the policy would ensure that “no one — whether government or corporate — should control free open access to the Internet.” It would also ban ISPs from “blocking, ban throttling, and ban paid-prioritization fast lanes.”

But FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who cast one of the two votes against the proposal, said the FCC was “turning its back on Internet freedom” by leaving the Internet vulnerable to more government regulation.

Pai and Michael O'Reilly, who cast the other dissenting vote, also complained that the complete policy (which is over 300 pages long) was not publicly released or debated beforehand.

What's it all about?

Net neutrality, as the label suggests, is basically the idea that all websites should be treated equally (or viewed neutrally) by ISPs: You can reach all websites at the same speed, whether those websites belong to big rich companies, or small-time bloggers and mom-and-pop startups. This also means the ISPs must carry all content equally, rather than make distinctions (or charge different prices) based on content.

Proponents of net neutrality feared that without it, the Internet would be divided into haves and have-nots -- easily accessible websites for companies rich enough to pay for fast-lane service; slow and clunky websites for everyone else.

Last May, the FCC rather confusingly spoke in favor of “net neutrality” while simultaneously arguing in favor of a “fast lane” proposal that would allow ISPs to charge content providers, such as Netflix, YouTube (or any other website), extra money in order to ensure that ordinary Internet customers could reach their sites in a timely fashion.

While ISPs supported the fast lane proposals, the American public overwhelmingly did not; last November, when President Barack Obama publicly spoke against the FCC's proposed fast lanes, he cited “almost 4 million public comments” made to the FCC against fast lanes and in favor of net neutrality.

ISPs such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T have long been opposed to net neutrality proposals, and are expected to sue in hope of overturning the FCC's decision.

The number of Americans with access to “broadband Internet” took a massive plunge on Thursday, after the Federal Communications Commission voted to raise the minimum speed required for a connection to qualify as “broadband.”

The new standard is a download speed of 25 Mbps (megabytes per second) and an upload speed of 3 Mbps. The old standard had been a minimum downloading speed of 4 Mbps , and 1 Mbps to upload. By way of comparison, Netflix recommends a minimum speed of 5 Mbps to stream a video in HD, or 3 Mbps for SD.

As of last August, when the FCC first started considering a raise in broadband speed, almost one-fifth of all Americans lived in areas where 5-1 broadband was not available.

And as of today, the number of Americans who lack broadband access is vastly greater: 53 percent of rural Americans and 8 percent of urban Americans currently lack access to 25-3 Internet speeds, according to an FCC report.

If you currently have a home “broadband” connection with, for example, a downloading speed of 10 Mbps, the new FCC ruling does not mean that your home Internet connection will now become 2.5 times faster. Most likely, this means that, at least for the immediate future, you'll have the same Internet connection as before, only your ISP won't be able to call it “broadband” anymore.

Hopefully, though, your ISP will invest in network upgrades so that it can once again call itself “broadband,” since everybody knows that in Internet terms, “non-broadband” is basically synonymous with “slow.”

A federal class action suit filed in San Francisco last week accuses Comcast of forcing its residential customersto bear the costs of building and maintaining Comcast's for-profit network of public wi-fi hotspots.

It's no secret that Comcast's plan for public wi-fi entails piggybacking on residential routers (as opposed to costlier-for-them options, such as building a network of transmission towers). In other words: your home router becomes a public wi-fi spot, although in this context, “public” does not mean “free,” merely that anybody with the right subscription credentials can access it.

Last March, we told you how Comcast's then-newest Xfinity routers automatically set up a second wi-fi network -- wide open and available for anyone within range. But Comcast said at the time that your residential network would not be in any way affected by the public network going through your router, and Comcast executive Tom Nagel told the Chicago Tribune that “They'll look like two separate networks and they'll act like two separate networks …. Any use on the public side doesn't impact the private side.”

Not true, suit claims

The class-action suit filed against Comcast last week basically alleges that such reassuring claims aren't true. Courthouse News reports that on Dec. 4, lead plaintiff Toyer Grear sued Comcast on the grounds that it “has externalized the costs of its national wi-fi network onto its customers,” according to the lawsuit. These costs allegedly include electricity: Grear's lawsuit says the public-hotspot routers use considerably more electricity than the old private-only routers, resulting in electric bills up to 30 or 40 percent higher than before, which the lawsuit calls “a cost borne by the unwitting customer.”

The complaint also says that tests of the actual routers and their total energy consumption suggests that “Comcast will be pushing tens of millions of dollars per month of the electricity bills needed to run their nationwide public wi-fi network onto consumers,” according to court documents. The lawsuit also alleges that home wi-fi customers whose routers also power public hotspots suffer slower home connections and increased security and privacy risks, due to the countless strangers who are using their home routers.

Comcast has not commented on the suit, which seeks a declaratory judgment, an injunction, restitution and damages for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and California's Unfair Competition Law.

As the Federal Communications Commission begins considering rules to ensure free and equal access to the Internet, President Obama is weighing in with his suggestions.

"An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life," Obama said in a statement. "By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known."

Obama suggests the FCC "should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online." He listed these priorities:

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.
• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.
• Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.
• No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

Obama noted that more than 4 million consumers have submitted public comments urging the adoption of net neutrality rules but conceded that a federal court had struck down the FCC's previous attempt to impose new regulations "not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said that he does not expect to have a final draft of proposed new rules before early next year.

Net neutrality is even bigger than "nipplegate." The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reports receiving a record 1,477,301 public comments about the issue since July.

The previous record of 1.4 million comments was set back in 2004 when a supposed “wardrobe malfunction” during the halftime show at the Super Bowl led to portions of Janice Jackson’s anatomy being displayed to an estimated audience of 111 million.

Many Internet heavyweights -- and not a few lightweights -- have been hounding their users, customers and fans to contact the FCC and Congress to express support for the principle that all users should have equal and unfettered access to the Internet.

Discussions around the issue had been rather academic until video streaming caught on and companies like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon began burning up vast swaths of bandwidth sending TV shows and movies to their subscribers.

This caused ISPs like Verizon to begin putting pressure on Netflix et al to pay more.

Awesomeness at stake

Corporate behemoths on the content side of the battle -- Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, Google and so forth -- managed to spin the issue so that civil libertarians and many consumers saw it as a free speech battle and took to the barricades.

Google, never shy about selling preferred placement on its search pages, issued a statement warning that the very awesomeness of the Internet was at stake. 

"If Internet access providers can block some services and cut special deals that prioritize some companies’ content over others, that would threaten the innovation that makes the Internet awesome," the search giant wrote in a message to Internet activists Wednesday. "No Internet access provider should block or degrade Internet traffic, nor should they sell ‘fast lanes’ that prioritize particular Internet services over others."

Unnoticed in all the hubbub were previous court rulings that had blocked the FCC's attempts to impose net neutrality principles on the Internet. Current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed a compromise often called "net neutality with a fast lane" but it has failed to pass the sniff test with neutrality advocates, who apparently would prefer to pass on the cost of upgrading the network to consumers.

Some technophiles have gone so far as to demand that the FCC declare the Internet a public utility and regulate it in much the same manner as telephone companies were regulated back in the Dark Ages (i.e., before the Internet came along). 

This would undoubtedly help alleviate the nation's unemployment problem by providing jobs for untold numbers of bureaucrats but how that stimulates innovation isn't always all that apparent.

A godsend for K Street

Truth is, Congressional action will most likely be needed to get around the legal roadblocks to enshrining net neutrality principles.

Compared to simply imposing the utility solution, throwing the matter into the arms of Congress may not immediately create a new army of regulators but it will certainly solve any shortfall in lobbying contracts on K Street, setting up a feeding frenzy that will sustain influence-peddlers for years, putting throngs of offspring through expensive colleges while financing beachfront homes and upgraded primary dwellings in McLean and Bethesda.

The downtown luncheon business will also enjoy quite a spurt.

Turning to Congress may, in fact, well set off the biggest lobbying battle since the titanic decade-long struggle that resulted in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which brought a hungry populace such wonders as 976 numbers, the ability to create your own bogus Caller IDs and, perhaps best of all, the requirement that telephone companies pass along third-party bills for such services as daily horoscopes and porn updates.

In other words, be careful what you wish for, net neutralitarans.

---

(Disclosure: The author was a public affairs executive who represented telecommunications clients during the 1990s). 

Earlier this month, the FCC suggested changing its current broadband standards: if the proposed changes go through, the minimum downloading speed required for an Internet connection to call itself “broadband” would rise to 10 Mbps (megabytes per second), more than double the current minimum broadband standard of only 4 Mbps. Even at the current low standard, almost 20 percent of Americans live in places without access to broadband.

But minimum speed is not the only broadband issue the FCC's currently considering. The question of whether or not to allow municipal broadband networks in states that have banned them is also raising heated partisan debates among national lawmakers.

Chairman Tom Wheeler has long said that the FCC has, or should have, the authority to override any state law banning municipalities from establishing public broadband networks (20 states already have such laws, thanks to legislation supported by cable companies and the ISP lobby in general).

So on August 19, two Democratic lawmakers – Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania – published an open letter/press release urging Wheeler to do just that.

The press release on Markey's website says, in part:

The June 27 Doyle-Markey letter – which was also signed by Senators Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal, and Corey A. Booker, along with Representatives Henry A. Waxman and Anna G. Eshoo – urged the FCC to use all of its authority to promote affordable, high quality broadband service in communities across the country:

“We are pleased by your recent comments about community broadband, particularly your assertion that municipal governments should not be inhibited if they wish to pursue the creation of their own networks…. We urge you and your colleagues to utilize the full arsenal of tools Congress has enacted to promote competitive broadband service to ensure America’s communities obtain a 21st century infrastructure to succeed in today’s fiercely competitive global economy.” 

A number of municipalities across the country have undertaken efforts to address their residents’ unmet broadband needs through a number of means, including creation of their own broadband networks. In recent years, however, a number of state governments have enacted laws prohibiting municipalities from creating their own broadband infrastructure. As a result, many communities across the country still don’t have adequate access to fast, reliable, and affordable broadband networks.

Republicans, by contrast, think states should have the right to ban municipal broadband networks, and the FCC should not have authority to override those states.

Matthew Berry, chief of staff to FCC Republican Ajit Pai, gave an Aug. 20 speech before the National Conference of State Legislatures in which he said that states should have the right to ban public municipal broadband, and also warned the current Democratic-led Congress and FCC against imposing partisan policies likely to be overturned by future Republican-led ones (or, depending on how you'd interpret it, a warning for one party not to use power in ways it wouldn't like once the other party gets into power):

So those who are potential supporters of the current FCC interpreting Section 706 to give the Commission the authority to preempt state laws about municipal broadband should think long and hard about what a future FCC might do with that power.

“Section 706” refers to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 – indeed, you could say this entire argument stems from disagreement over exactly what it means.

That section starts out by saying that:

(a) IN GENERAL-The Commission and each State commission with regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications services shall encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans (including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms) by utilizing, in a manner consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity, price cap regulation, regulatory forbearance, measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.

In other words ...

So here's the debate: the FCC is supposed to encourage the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans, and in today's Internet-dependent world, that definitely includes improving America's dismal broadband infrastructure. The current global average broadband speed is 17.9 Mbps, whereas America's current minimum broadband speed is only 4 Mbps, and almost 20 percent of Americans don't even have access to that.

What is the best way to make fast and reliable broadband service available to all Americans -- public, tax-funded municipal networks, or privately owned networks such as those run by Cox, Comcast, Time-Warner and other ISPs? If cities do develop public broadband networks, will that discourage private investment in those cities?

In general, it appears that the current batch of Democratic lawmakers and FCC members believe public municipal broadband is a good way to bring fast connections to areas where they doesn't exist, whereas the Republican lawmakers and FCC members support states' rights to ban public networks on the grounds that private ISPs can better provide broadband service without facing unfair tax-funded competition.

How fast must an Internet connection be, to qualify as broadband? According to current FCC standards, “broadband” status requires a minimum downloading speed of 4 Mbps (megabytes per second), and 1 Mbps to upload.

But this week the FCC started seeking public comment on a proposal to raise that standard, and require broadband download speeds of at least 10 Mbps.

By way of comparison, Netflix currently recommends a minimum speed of 5 Mbps to stream a video in HD (compared to 3 Mbps for SD).

Under current 4 Mbps FCC standards, almost one-fifth of the current U.S., population lacks access to a reliable broadband connection. If the higher 10 Mbps standard is adopted, that percentage is certain to grow.

No comparison

How do American broadband speeds compare to the rest of the world? Not well; our Internet connections are slower and clunkier than what most advanced nations enjoy.

In February 2012, the average global broadband speed was already slightly higher than 10 Mbps. That was two and a half years ago, a long time by computer or Internet technological-evolution standards.

By April 2014, the global average was up to 17.9 Mbps and at least 12 places on Earth had average connection speeds significantly higher than the United States.

Hong Kong had the fasest average connection speed in the world: 65.4 Mbps for downloading. American Internet speeds also lag considerably behind those of such countries as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Israel, Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Of course, where Internet speeds are concerned, those countries and cities all share an advantage over the United States: they have much higher population densities packed into much smaller landmasses.

There's only 31 square miles in all of Hong Kong, compared to almost 3 million square miles of land in the continental U.S., and wiring 31 square miles for super-fast Internet speeds is obviously easier than wiring 3 million miles (even if you ignore the wilderness areas). But even if we can't be as well-wired as Hong Kong, we still have plenty of room for improvement.

The FCC will seek public comment for 45 days.

On June 17, Democrats in Congress and the Senate have put forward a proposed piece of legislation which, if successful, would ban so-called “fast lanes” on the Internet.

In May, the FCC issued a rather confusing report claiming to support net neutrality, the idea that Internet providers must treat all content equally, so that viewers can see all websites at the same speed, rather than enjoy quick access to the websites of wealthy companies willing to pay fast lane fees while suffering slow, clunky service everywhere else.

Yet the FCC confusingly -- at least to some -- spoke in favor of net neutrality while simultaneously allowing ISP to offer “fast lanes” to companies willing to pay extra.

In response, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative Doris Matsui of California proposed the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act which, if passed, would ban ISPs from offering paid fast-lane services.

The Washington Post, which reported on the proposal Tuesday morning before it was actually introduced, noted:

Leahy and Matsui's proposed ban on fast lanes would apply only to the connections between consumers and their ISPs — the part of the Internet governed by the FCC's proposed net neutrality rules. The FCC's current proposal tacitly allows for the creation of a tiered Internet for content companies, though the commission has asked the public whether it should ban the practice as "commercially unreasonable."

Whether a bill proposed by two Democrats will get enough Republican and Democratic votes to actually pass into law remains to be seen.

If you're looking to be relieved of your worldly goods, you can hang out in a casino, buy a batch of Lotto tickets daily and give big piles of money to everyone you meet.

Or you can just sign up for cable, telephone and Internet service.

The ink is not even dry on the Federal Communications Commission's new policy that lets companies like Comcast charge companies like Netflix higher rates to ensure that their streaming video moves smoothly and quickly and now the perhaps over-confident carriers are beginning to move towards their longtime dream -- getting more money on both ends.

A Comcast executive is being quoted today as saying he expects the company will roll out "usage-based billing" — what most people call "data caps" — to all of its customers within five years.

"I would predict that in five years Comcast at least would have a usage-based billing model rolled out across its footprint," Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said, according to ThomsonReuters (transcript).

Forked tongue

But hey, put yourself in Comcast's shoes. Currently consumers pay you $100 or so per month for Internet access and other "bundled services." If they want faster Internet connections, they pay a few bucks more.

Netflix and other big content companies pay for their local connection to the Internet but until recently, they haven't paid a premium to the Comcasts of the world even though they use more than half the available broadband capacity most days.

So now that they have their hands in the pockets of the content providers, Comcast and the other carriers are just doing what big monopolies do -- sharpening their plans to shake more money out of consumers. 

Come on, did you really expect anything else?

It's hard not to feel confused — or at least suspect that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler might be confused — when you read today's news reports that the FCC has voted for “net neutrality,” and hear Wheeler praise “net neutrality” and a free and open internet even though the actual FCC rules seem to run counter to what “net neutrality” is supposed to be.

Net neutrality, as the label suggests, is basically the idea that all websites should be treated equally (or viewed neutrally) by Internet service providers: you can reach all websites at the same speed, whether websites belonging to big rich companies or little blogs and mom-and-pop startups.

But what the “net neutrality” the FCC passed today also allows for an Internet “fast lane” granting certain companies faster connection speeds provided they pay for the privilege.

Earlier this year, Netflix agreed to pay Comcast to ensure Comcast subscribers could get faster connections to the Netflix site; Netflix later signed a similar deal with Verizon. The new FCC rules basically say yes, that's fine; Comcast, Verizon and other providers can indeed charge Netflix higher rates for faster service.

But is that necessarily unfair? Just yesterday, after all, came reports that streaming video services like Netflix account for more than half the broadband traffic in North America.

Good arguments?

Perhaps there are good arguments to make, then, that Netflix should pay more since it consumes more traffic. Or should Internet customers who use lots of bandwidth — the people actually streaming those Netflix videos — pay more than those who do not?

They already do, or soon will. Comcast — which now charges Netflix higher costs for faster connections — is also imposing broadband caps on its customers.

So there's a limit to how much bandwidth you can use for Netflix or other services, in addition to the extra fees Netflix and other services pay to ensure you can access them in a timely manner.

Critics of the FCC proposal fear than the Internet will basically be divided into haves and have-nots: easily accessible websites for companies rich enough to pay for fast-lane service, slow and clunky websites for everyone else.

But FCC Chairman Wheeler, while supporting Internet fast lanes, still said, “there is one Internet. Not a fast Internet, not a slow Internet, one Internet.” One Internet with a fast lane.

Comcast, working to engineer approval of its merger with Time Warner Cable, has put together a complex deal under which Charter Communications would take over 3.9 million customers.

The deal would reduce Comcast's post-merger market share to less than 30% nationwide while making Charter the second-largest U.S. cable operator. 

Charter would take over systems in Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana and Alabama, while divesting systems in California, New England, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Washington and Virginia.

A new, spun-off company would take over systems that are near Charter’s existing footprint in Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

In the first stage of the three-part deal, Charter would buy 1.4 million Time Warner Cable customers for $7.3 billion when the Comcast-Time Warner merger is completed. 

Charter would also form a holding company that would get a one-third stake in a Comcast spin-off that would have 2.5 million customers.

Another 1.6 million Charter and Comcast customers would be swapped.

“The transactions announced today will provide Charter with greater scale, growth opportunities and improved geographical rationalization of our cable systems, which in turn will drive value for shareholders and more effective customer service,” Charter Chief Executive Officer Tom Rutledge said in a statement.

Rutledge said Charter’s new "footprint" would be easier to operate since the shuffling would put its systems closer to each other. It would also boost Charter's subscriber count to 8.2 million, nearly double its current total.

The latest proposed "net neutrality" rules may not be exactly neutral but Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler says they're a step in the right direction. And Wheeler says early reports about the proposed rules have been dead wrong.

"To be very direct, the proposal would establish that behavior harmful to consumers or competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will not be permitted," he said in a blog post Thursday afternoon.

The commission is proposing new rules that would let big companies -- or any company for that matter -- pay broadband providers a fee for what amounts to premium service; if Netflix doesn't want its movies and TV shows getting jammed up behind other traffic, it could pay Cablevision, Verizon and other broadband providers for a clearer channel.

This sparks outrage in advocates of the net neutrality principle, which holds that the Internet should treat everyone equally. But with Netflix and YouTube alone gobbling up half of the available bandwidth on the Internet most days, Wheeler might argue that it's unrealistic for them to get the same treatment as Al's Garage and Body Shop.

The FCC had earlier tried to enforce a more "pure" net neutrality but the rules it drafted were struck down by a federal appeals court, just as they had been a few years earlier. Wheeler is hoping this attempt will be more successful.

Some consumer advocates fear that if Netflix or Disney has to pay more to assure glitch-free transmissions, it will eventually pass those costs on to its customers. Others counter that the streaming video market is becoming so competitive that it will be a long time before anyone dares raise rates drastically.

Besides, Wheeler says, his plan will forbid Comcast and other carriers from purposely throttling transmissions from content providers who don't pay for special handling, while at the same time allowing the carriers to offer premium services to companies willing to pay for it. He insisted in his blog post that broadband carriers -- commonly known as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) -- would not be able to take actions that would harm consumers.

To be clear, this is what the Notice will propose:

1. That all ISPs must transparently disclose to their subscribers and users all relevant information as to the policies that govern their network;
2. That no legal content may be blocked; and
3. That ISPs may not act in a commercially unreasonable manner to harm the Internet, including favoring the traffic from an affiliated entity.

The proposal is being circulated at the commission today and will be voted on at its May 15 meeting. 

There's about 7.5 billion people currently in the world, and one of them is bound to be of the opinion “Y'know, this proposed Comcast/Time Warner cable merger sounds like it would be genuinely awesome, and I believe this even though I neither work for nor own stock in those companies.”

Unfortunately, I was unable to track down this person and request a quotable comment before I had to file this-here article about the more than 50 public interest groups who signed an open letter opposing the planned merger, on the grounds that it would be bad for consumers, free speech advocates, free press, public broadcasting, and pretty much everybody who isn't a Comcast stockholder-type.

On April 8, FreePress released the open letter (available in .pdf form here) to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, opposing the proposed merger for numerous reasons, including: it “would give one company enormous power over our nation’s media and communications infrastructure,” and “would give Comcast control over half of the nation’s next generation broadband customers and more than half of the pay TV/Internet bundled subscribers.”

Better prices?

Might those subscribers at least hope for better prices? “In the last four years, Comcast has raised its basic cable rates in some of its markets by nearly 70%.”

Ouch. Well, maybe they needed the money for infrastructure upgrades or something. Maybe. If so, why should so many public-interest groups are opposed to this merger?

Comcast has repeatedly flexed its corporate and political muscles to get what it wants, even if that has meant harming competition, consumers and communities. Around the country Comcast has fought community efforts to bridge the digital divide with municipal broadband networks. It has lobbied statehouses and local governments to undermine public, educational and government access television. It has blocked its customers’ Internet traffic. And it was fined for failing to fulfill the commitments it made to secure approval of its merger with NBCUniversal. The Comcast Time Warner Cable merger would give Comcast unthinkable gatekeeper power over our commercial, social and civic lives. . Everyone from the biggest business to the smallest startup, from elected officials to everyday people, would have to cross through Comcast’s gates.

Oh, that's why.

Incidentally, April 8 was also the day that the Consumerist (official blog of the Consumers Union and Consumer Reports) announced the results of their annual “Worst Company in America” readers' poll for 2014; Comcast beat out Monsanto to win the uncoveted award for the second time.

Those cable companies are sneaky, all right. They're always trying to put one over on us. Take Comcast. It's not content just to buy NBC and Time Warner, now it's setting up little neighborhood wi-fi networks in places you'd never imagine.

Like your back yard.

Yep, big bad Comcast has been quietly bringing wireless broadband to neighborhoods all over America. Besides providing a private, password-protected network inside your home, the company's newest Xfinity routers automatically set up a second wi-fi network -- wide open and available for anyone within range.

The company emphasizes that these are two separate networks. What goes on on the second public network won't affect your download speeds or impinge on your privacy in any way. 

"They'll look like two separate networks and they'll act like two separate networks," said Tom Nagel, who heads the Xfinity Wi-Fi initiative for Comcast, according to The Chicago Tribune. "Any use on the public side doesn't impact the private side."

Tipping point

The program has been conducted quietly so far in test markets around the country but Comcast has gone public in Chicago, which local boosters say could be the tipping point for making Comcast the biggest national operator of neighborhood wi-fi networks.

Demand for wi-fi has been steadily growing as smartphone and tablet users look for a cheaper alternative to costly cellphone broadband networks. Deploying cheap or even free wi-fi is a way for the cable companies to put a dent in Verizon, AT&T and Sprint and building the basis for customer loyalty programs. 

The neighborhood networks are free to Xfinity subscribers. Nonsubscribers will get two free hours a month; beyond that, they can access Xfinity Wi-Fi on a per-use basis. Rates run from $2.95 per hour to $19.95 per week, according to Comcast.

Travel freely

Xfinity subscribers will be able to travel freely without having to log in and out as they move from one hot spot to another, so that in time the network may grow to rival the cellular telephone networks, which are much more expensive to build and maintain.

Comcast has said it is closing in on having 1 million hot spots nationwide. Best of all, from Comcast's standpoint, is that the build-out is virtually free. The consumer provides the electricity for the router and the circuit already exists, so the only capital expense is the router. 

Slick, no?

Like the very hungry caterpillar, Comcast appears determined to eat everything in its path. Already the nation's largest cable operator, Comcast now says it will buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion.

This comes just a few months after it completed its purchase of television network and movie studio NBCUniversal.

What this means for consumers in general is that an already dominant company will now have an even firmer grasp on TV and cable shows and movies and the distribution networks that deliver them.

For 8 million Time Warner Cable customers, it means they're about to become Comcast-- a/k/a XFINITY -- customers. This may be a good thing, as Comcast is generally regarded as maintaining high-quality Internet and TV services while Time Warner Cable is not on anyone's list of greatest companies ever. 

Another 3 million Time Warner Cable customers will be cast adrift, landing in the welcoming arms of Cablevision, Cox or Charter, which had made its own run at Time Warner.

The 8 million new customers will bring Comcast's total customer base to about 30 million. But the company insists consumers -- and, more significantly, regulators -- shouldn't worry. It will still have less than 30 percent of the market for pay TV subscribers, it insists.

"The combination of Time Warner Cable and Comcast creates an exciting opportunity for our company, for our customers, and for our shareholders," said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Comcast Corporation. 

Subscribers shouldn't worry unduly just yet. The acquisition faces a lengthy regulatory review before much of anything actually happens.

Net neutrality is not one of those issues that makes consumers' blood boil, although maybe it should. Basically, it's the principle that Internet service providers should treat all traffic equally -- whether it's a movie from Netflix, Google search results or streaming music from Spotify. 

Who wouldn't agree with that, right? Well, the big carriers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, among others. They would like to be able to give favored treatment to companies that pay for the bandwidth they use.

Unfortunately, among those who don't agree with the principle is a federal appeals court in Washington, which today ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to bar Internet carriers from favoring one type of traffic over another.

In a prepared statement, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said, “I am committed to maintaining our networks as engines for economic growth, test beds for innovative services and products, and channels for all forms of speech protected by the First Amendment. We will consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans.”

No change?

In a prepared statement, Verizon said nothing would in the ruling will change the way consumers access the Internet.

"The court's decision will allow more room for innovation, and consumers will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet," the company said.

Also weighing in was Michael Beckerman, President and CEO of The Internet Association, who said the ruling could endanger the continued success of the Internet in creating jobs and new services for consumers.

"The Internet creates new jobs, new technologies, and new ways of communicating around the globe," Beckerman said. "Its innovation without permission ecosystem flows from a decentralized, open architecture that has few barriers to entry. Yet, the continued success of this amazing platform should not be taken for granted.

"The Internet Association supports enforceable rules that ensure an open Internet, free from government control or discriminatory, anticompetitive actions by gatekeepers. We look forward to studying the D.C. Circuit’s opinion and working with the FCC and policymakers on the Hill to protect Internet freedom, foster innovation and economic growth, and empower users," he said.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced the second release of federal funds to subsidize broadband infrastructure to serve rural areas of the U.S. Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn announced another $485 million is going to the Connect America Fund.

The tax dollars will go to private corporations in the broadband business. In exchange for receiving the money, the companies will provide fixed-line high speed broadband services in areas where it might not make economic sense otherwise. The government is kicking in some money as a way to convince the companies to make the investment.

In rural areas, consumers are few and far between, making it expensive to provide service to them. Many rural consumers get their Internet service through satellite providers or local wireless providers.

15 million still going slow

According to FCC estimates, some 15 million Americans, most of them living in rural areas, lack broadband, creating economic dislocation. Without high-speed Internet, consumers and businesses may find they lack access to jobs, education, and other opportunities.

To show you what broadband services are available at your address, the FCC created this map tool. 

With so much of commerce now online, businesses without broadband are cut off some significant parts of the economy. So are consumers. The Connect America Fund has the aim of making sure broadband access is available to anyone who wants it by the end of the decade.

The money isn't coming from a new tax but from a very old one. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress added a small tax to consumers' telephone bills, called the Universal Service Fund tax, to be used to expand telephone service to rural areas.

Since that need has long been met, the FCC is diverting that money to encourage the build-out of broadband infrastructure. CenturyLink is one of the companies getting the money in this latest phase of the program. It stands to receive $90 million.

CenturyLink subsidy

"CenturyLink and the commission share the same goal of delivering high-speed Internet services to Americans who currently don't have access to them," said Steve Davis, CenturyLink executive vice president for public policy and government relations. "We praise Chairwoman Clyburn for her dedication to communications issues that impact rural Americans and for being a strong proponent that all of the CAF I money left over from the first round be available to rural consumers. Clyburn has been a staunch advocate for consumers and a tireless champion of the economic and educational opportunities that come with broadband."

CenturyLink received $35 million from the Connect America Fund in 2012 to deploy broadband service to 45,000 homes in unserved rural areas. The company said it is also investing hundreds of millions of dollars of its own money to supplement the money from the government.

The FCC says the money for the Connect America Fund is mostly coming from the elimination of waste in the old program, funded by the Universal Service Funds. Through better management, the agency says, it is eliminating wasteful subsidies and targeting them where they are needed most.

The Connect America Fund is a rare Washington initiative that draws support from both Democrats and Republicans. One hundred members of Congress from both sides of the aisle contacted the FCC earlier this year, urging it to speed up distribution of broadband funds.

Some other telecommunications companies have yet to say if they will accept funds. By doing so they would commit themselves to spending a matching amount to carry out the construction. Not all are willing to do that, at least not yet.

Think you're not getting the download speed your broadband provider promised? You might be right but a study by the Federal Communications Commission finds many providers are not only meeting but exceeding their advertised speeds.

That's a big improvement over 2011, when the first FCC survey found many providers not delivering the speeds they promised.

In the latest report, Verizon FiOS service averaged download speeds that were 118% of advertised download rates. Cablevision was at 115% and Comcast 103%.

“Faster broadband has brought untold benefits to millions of Americans - from distance learning to distance healthcare," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said. "This is good news for consumers and the economy, but we can’t be satisfied. To unleash innovation and realize broadband’s full potential, we must continue to see increases in broadband speed and capacity.”

In this year’s report, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) maintained 
their performance levels, delivering 97 percent of advertised speeds during peak periods. One provider significantly improved actual performance speeds by 13 percent from the previous report.

Did they do it by downgrading the speeds they promised, as some skeptics might suspect? No, said the FCC, the providers have actually improved their networks to improve performance.

Consumers have also doing some upgrading of their own, the report found, ordering faster speeds to satisfy their thirst for movies, music and other bandwidth-hungry applications.

The FCC found that the average speed tier subscribed to by consumers increased from 14.3 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 15.6 Mbps. Nearly half of consumers who subscribed to speeds of less than 1 Mbps six months ago have adopted higher speeds, and nearly a quarter of the users who subscribed to speeds between 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps have upgraded to faster speed tiers. 

Satellite performance

In what may come as a surprise to many consumers, the FCC also found that "significant improvements" have been made to satellite broadband technology service quality.

For the first time, the report includes results on satellite technology based on test results from ViaSat, a major satellite services provider.

"Although satellite technology has the highest overall latency, test results indicate that during peak periods, 90 percent of satellite consumers received 140 percent or better of the advertised speed of 12 Mbps," the report said, adding that there was "very little difference" between peak and non-peak performance.

ViaSat and HughesNet have both launched new satellites, which they say should provide vastly better service than their earlier models, a claim that's supported by the FCC's findings.

The "latency" that the FCC report referred to is the time it takes a signal to travel from earth to the satellite and back again. This creates a noticeable lag that often causes consumers to see the service as "slow" when in fact the data transfer rate is usually on par with advertised speeds, as the FCC report confirmed. 

Until someone figures out how to increase the speed of light, the satellite lag is here to stay and is not the fault of the service provider. 

To read the complete February 2013 "Measuring Broadband America" report, see www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america.

HughesNet recently launched a next generation satellite to provide high-speed Internet service to rural America, matching a step taken in January by its rival Exede, which is owned by ViaSat. Both companies say their new services are nothing like the old satellite-delivered broadband.

I admit I was a skeptic. Having lived in rural Northumberland County, Va., for the last ten years, I have tried just about everything to keep pace with the Internet as it has required more and more speed.

In the early- to mid-2000s I tried both HughesNet and Wild Blue, also owned by ViaSat, and found them totally inadequate. For the last few years I have relied on Verizon Wireless' old Mobile Broadband service (now HotSpot) for Internet service at home.

Just getting by

There were many challenges. First, it's a measured plan with only 5 GB of data per month. That meant careful monitoring on my usage. Watching a movie was out of the question, but not just because of the data it would consume. The 3G speed just wasn't conducive to watching streaming video.

I was also three and a half miles from the nearest Verizon tower so my signal was marginal. With a booster antenna installed in the attic I could usually get close to 1 mps download.

But then smartphones came along and suddenly the demands on the network rapidly increased. On a good day my download speed was .6 mps and the congestion on the network meant pages would often time out before they loaded.

While my urban colleagues long ago upgraded their DSL connections to FiOS, to me DSL was only a dream. Half of Northumberland County is served by Verizon switching stations still using analog equipment. Despite repeated appeals from county officials, Verizon has declined to upgrade its system.

New generation

So last month, when I interviewed Lisa Scalpone, VP Marketing for ViaSat, I was intrigued when she said the new satellite system was nothing like the old ones. Because Exede was the same price I was paying for Verizon Wireless, and I would get 10 GB of data per month instead of 5, I decided to give it a try.

The system was installed on October 20. The installer appeared knowledgeable and competent, properly siting the dish, setting up the system and making sure each computer in the house was connected.

After using the system for a few weeks, I have to say I am impressed, with a couple of caveats. The advertised download speed is 12 mps. Scalpone said I could expect it to actually be slightly higher. In fact, it's something less. Not enough to notice, but less than advertised.

When measured by the Speakeasy.net speed test, the download speed was 10.21 mps with an upload rate of 2.09 mps. When measured using SpeedTest.net, the download speed was only 6.79 with an upload rate of 2.94 mps. The “ping rate,” the response time from my computer to the server, is 724. A normal DSL connection has a ping rate of about 40. The higher the number, the longer the delay.

Latency

And that gets to the real meat of the argument against satellite broadband, the “latency,” or lag between the time you click on a link and the time the page begins to load on your computer. On the old systems latency was seen as a huge problem. But Scalpone says latency was not responsible for consumers' frustrating delays; congestion on the satellite was. That has been rectified, she says, with a bigger, faster satellite.

Latency is still there, of course, because you really can't do anything about the distance between your dish and the satellite in earth orbit. Scalpone said the delay should only be a half-second. We have found it to be more like three to four seconds. While that's slightly annoying, it's easily overlooked because, once the page begins to load, it's extremely fast. Video plays with no buffering.

The system also seems very stable. In the short time we have had Exede there have been no outages or dropouts. The service was even rock solid during Hurricane Sandy.

The satellite providers will tell you that the service might not be right for everyone. The latency issue makes online gaming problematic and Skype or other Internet phone service is a no-go. If you are an extremely heavy user, you might need to pay more for a larger data package. But for the average user, 10 GB should be ample.

I have an office in nearby Richmond, Va., where I have access to DSL Internet. As I have used the two systems over the last couple of weeks, I have been able to compare them.

Compares favorably to DSL

The DSL system provides a consistent 5 mps download speed. Because of its low latency, it seems a little bit faster. It also provides for unlimited data and is about $10 a month cheaper.

For those reasons, if I had access to DSL, I would probably choose that. The fact is, however, I don't have that choice at my rural digs and the new generation of satellite-delivered Internet gives me -- and the rest of rural America -- an option to catch up with our urban peers. And a pretty good option, at that, and it's available right now, not in a few years.

For policymakers trying to find ways to expand broadband service to rural America, the new satellite systems are something that deserve close attention. Satellite broadband requires no infrastructure investment, beyond a dish, and could be a reasonable alternative to huge taxpayer subsidies to major telecommunications companies.

As policymakers continue to debate how best to bring more broadband service to unserved rural areas of America, satellite providers say they deserve another look.

ViaSat Communications' Exede Internet service, which took over satellite provider WildBlue, launched a new satellite in January. HughesNet, its competitor, followed suit last month. Both companies now offer a service they say is far superior to what was offered in the past.

Explosive growth

When WildBlue began marketing satellite Internet service in October 2004, the Internet was in an explosive period of growth, but no one knew how quickly that would play out.

“We started with the idea that we were going to provide the most blazing-fast 1.5mps service the world had ever seen,” said Lisa Scalpone, VP Marketing for ViaSat.”That was the state-of-the-art of DSL at the time we conceived of all of this.”

WildBlue and its competitor Directway, later acquired by Hughes, were designed for an Internet that was changing by the day.

“It was good at first but then the Internet passed us by,” Scalpone said. “The speeds of cable and DSL blew by us, and we did didn't predict what the year-over-year growth in Internet traffic would be.”

Video?

And the idea that consumers would soon be watching video online hadn't even entered the equation. So the systems faced a few problems. Subscribers used more and more bandwidth yet the capacity of the satellites remained fixed.

“The satellites didn't have the capacity to handle the explosion in Internet traffic,” she said. “The second thing was the ground systems were not optimized to handle the complexity of the Web pages.”

When a user of a satellite Internet system clicked on a page, objects on the page -- things like graphics and photos -- loaded one at a time.

“When we designed the ground system a Web page might have five objects. By a couple of years ago a page might have 60 objects,” Scalpone said.

Viasat steps in

So ViaSat, WildBlue's major supplier, acquired the service and went to work designing a new satellite system that would address these issues.

“They designed the world's largest telecommunications satellite,” Scalpone said. “They got that it was a bandwidth issue and a ground systems issue.”

ViaSat, which added Exede as an Internet provider, developed software that accelerates and optimizes the complexity of web pages and designed a much bigger, faster satellite. The bigger satellite addresses the congestion issue while the software makes highly complex Webpages load faster.

A revolution

“This is revolutionary, not evolutionary,” Scalpone said. “This is not just an incremental step”

But what about the issue of “latency,” the delay caused by the distance the Webpage has to travel from space? You might be able to write new software and build a bigger, faster satellite but you really can't do anything about the speed of light.

“On the WildBlue system it felt like it took 20 seconds to open a Webpage, Scalpone concedes. “But that wasn't really about latency, it was just congestion. Those satellites empty would have popped the pages just as well. But because it appeared as this grinding, serial downloading of objects, people associated that with latency.”

Half-second delay

The latency, or delay on the new system, she says, is a half-second. Scalpone says the service has the feel of a wired service and you don't notice the difference going from your office to your home. She says you don't notice it watching video and you can even use VoIP, something not practical with the old system.

Both Exede and Hughes offer packages starting at $50 a month for 12 mbs download and 3 mps upload. Plans are fixed -- just like cellphone data plans -- because satellite capacity is fixed. Exede has just increased its base data plan from 7.5 GB per month to 10 GB per month without increasing the price.

“We are not going to be the optimal service for the heaviest user, but for a user that is typical to slightly more, we want to target that group,” Scalpone said.

And while they certainly hope rural consumers give them another chance, Scalpone says the company is not limiting itself. With its speed and price, she thinks the company can be competitive in urban and suburban markets as well.

It's mighty nice being out there all by your lonesome, if that's the kind of thing that appeals to you. Whether it's on a mountaintop, out on the lone prairie or on the rocky coast of Maine, the solitary life appeals to many.

There's one big drawback, though: no broadband Internet service. Cities and suburbs may be noisy, dirty and crowded but at least you can jump on Netflix and catch up with "Breaking Bad," right?

Well, that may finally be about to change. After decades of disappointment with satellite Internet services, rural dwellers will soon get another chance. Dish Network is launching a nationwide broadband service next Monday under the brand name dishNet -- and it swears this one will work the way consumers want it to.

dishNET still won't match the 305 Mbps you can get from FiOS but thanks to new satellite technology, Dish says it will deliver 4G-level service of about 10 Mbps; that's markedly better than the dismal 1.5 Mbps which has been about the best any of the current services have been able to achieve. 

Data limits

Ah, but here's the catch: there will be data limits. This is wireless service, after all, so dishNET will be offering tiered service, which is a fancy way of saying the more you use, the more you pay.

The cheapest service -- starting at $39.99 per month -- offers five gigabytes a month of "anytime" service and five "offpeak" gigabytes that must be used between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. Five gigabytes is roughly enough to stream three high-def movies, so you'll still have plenty of time to get out there and milk the cows, run the nets or whatever it is that lured you to the sticks in the first place.

DISH's CEO Joseph Clayton is unveiling dishNET today at the flagship Cowboy Maloney's Electric City retail store in Jackson, Miss., the historic retail launch site of digital satellite TV and satellite radio services.

"Today, we are launching a revolutionary consumer broadband service that delivers high-speed Internet available in metropolitan areas to rural markets nationwide," Clayton said. "With nearly one-in-four rural residents lacking a high-speed connection, reaching these underserved markets is vital. Our mission is to provide broadband at an outstanding value with fast speeds and large data plans."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) estimates there are 19 million Americans without access to high-speed Internet. It has been wringing its hands and conducting studies for decades with about as much success as you'd expect. Namely none.

Pricing plans

In rural and outlying suburban regions nationwide, dishNET satellite broadband starts at $39.99 per month (plus equipment fees) for 5 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload speeds and data plans of 10 GB, when bundled with DISH's America's Top 120 or higher programming packages and with a two-year agreement.

Combining dishNET with DISH TV saves $10 per month. Most satellite customers can upgrade to a 10 Mbps /1 Mbps plan available with 20 GB of data for $49.99 per month.

Say what you will, dishNET has to be better than WildBlue, which Dish has been selling for the last few years.

"First of all, I hate Wild Blue!" said Annie of Escondido, Calif., in a recent ConsumerAffairs posting. "Unfortunately, I must use satellite because I live and work in a rural area. San Diego county! Yes, one of the most progressive cities in the world. I live on the outskirts and have to use the awful satellite service. On my 4th year now and have always had problems with all of it."

Joy of Fort Lupton, Colo., agrees: "I had Wild Blue for almost five years and the service was horrible the entire time."

About the only consolation for WildBlue has been that customers of competing Hughes Network are even madder, or maybe there are just more of them.

"Do not get Hughes Internet, the worst internet service I have ever seen," said Jim of Washington State. "They have no connection, horrible installation crew. They literally ran out of the house so they wouldn't have to help me get my computer running. Bad, bad, bad. ... You could walk to Europe and deliver a letter faster than you could email your neighbor."

While national policymakers are searching for a way to expand broadband Internet service to rural America, they might learn a thing or two by taking a close look at Churchill County, Nevada. The county of 25,000 people has plenty of Internet options.

“There's probably no one in the county that can't get high-speed Internet service,” said Bob Adams, General Manager of CC Communications, a county-owned telephone company.

CC Communications began in 1889 when Western Union announced it was discontinuing telegraph service in the county. Churchill County purchased the lines for $950 and began providing the service itself.

Full range of services

Today, CC Communications provides telephone, television, cellular, technical and security services. Adams says the company added the ISP side of the business in 1994 with dial-up but transitioned to a DSL-type broadband service in 1998.

For a while the company supplemented its wired service with wireless Internet, but spun-off the wireless division of the company and invested the money in fiber optic.

“Seventy percent of our county residents are eligible to receive fiber optic service,” Adams said.

CC Communications serves about 5,000 Internet customers. In addition, consumers can choose to receive high-speed Internet from Charter Communications, a cable TV provider in the county. It's a wealth of Internet riches most rural areas simply don't have. Many areas are limited to dial-up, mobile broadband or satellite service, all of which have distinct limitations.

Why some rural counties have few options

Adams says a big difference in the under-served rural areas is the fact that they must rely on large “price cap carriers,” like AT&T and Verizon, rather than small locally-owned providers. Whereas price cap carriers are reluctant to spend on infrastructure in sparsely-populated areas, the locally-owned providers see it as their mandate.

“We serve our county residents the best we can and we don't have to worry about a profit, where price cap companies are publicly traded and face pressures we don't,” Adams said.

Earlier this month the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Wireline Competition Bureau announced it is seeking input on how the FCC should estimate the cost of bringing broadband to underserved areas in territories serviced by AT&T, Verizon and the nation's other large price cap carriers.

If you live in even a small city you likely have plenty of options for connecting to the Internet. But if you live in a rural area, your choices can be extremely limited. Not only that, each of the choices has its drawbacks.

As a basic option, there is dial-up service. Your computer connects to the Internet through a built-in modem and a telephone line. The connection speed is extremely slow, meaning all but the simplest web pages will take forever to load.

And good luck finding simple web pages. These days the Internet is designed for broadband access, with most pages containing large amounts of data. Forget about playing rich media like video.

The choices

So if you've decided you need a broadband connection, your choices are limited to satellite, mobile broadband through your cellphone provider, or a local wireless network, if one exists in your area.

Very few homes in rural areas have cable TV access because few cable providers find it profitable to go to the expense to install digital-capable cable to serve them. At the same time some telephone companies serving rural counties do not have digital equipment in these locations that can provide DSL service. At some point they may upgrade their equipment but they won't until they deem it to be profitable. And who knows when that might be.

Satellite Internet service is provided by HughesNet, WildBlue, StarBand and SkyWay. One of the biggest problems with satellite Internet service is latency. Latency is the delay between requesting data and the receipt of a response. This is no one's fault, it's simply physics. It takes time for the signal to travel from your computer to the satellite, which is way out there in space. Even when actual data download speeds are fast, the latency issue makes satellite Internet feel very sluggish. 

Variable speeds

But latency isn't the only drawback to satellite services. 

“We were thinking if we paid $70 a month, we should be able to use all we want; that is not the way it works with HughesNet,” Susan, of Luthersville, Ga., wrote in a ConsumeAffairs post. “I would like to get a smart TV, but I don't have Internet service smart enough to let me use it. I could never use streaming Netflix with HughesNet. Netflix is cheap enough, but HughesNet would cost me a fortune.”

Gertrude, of Newport, Tenn., is a WildBlue customer who says the service isn't fast enough to play a game.

“Also they said that you have to monitor your usage or they will slow down your Internet,” Gertrude wrote. “I am a student and I need to download some large files for school. But when I called them today, they told me that I was not able to download them because I have used the Internet too much.”

Government subsidies

As part of the federal government's stimulus program, millions of dollars were allocated to subsidize development of rural broadband services. But much of the money was spent for satellite services, not for building out wired services.

For rural consumers who have good reception to a cellphone tower, mobile broadband can provide an alternative. The service is basically the same that consumers use to access the Internet with their smartphones. While 3G speed is about the same as the very lowest DSL speeds, 4G speed, which will eventually cover rural areas, is much faster.

But consumers using mobile broadband for everyday Internet access must carefully monitor their usage. No carrier offers unlimited data service. They are all measured, meaning consumers must stay within their usage plan each month or pay an overage fee.

A start-up called LightSquared has been promising to build a nationwide wireless network that would bring high-speed broadband to areas that are not now adequately served.

But the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has bowed to objections from the military and other government agencies which argued that LightSquare posed an unacceptable risk to Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, which use adjacent frequencies.

LightSquared has blamed GPS receivers, saying they're too sensitive.

“LightSquared’s proposal to provide ground-based mobile service offered the potential to unleash new spectrum for mobile broadband and enhance competition. [But] the Commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted," said FCC spokeswoman Tammy Sun.

“NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time. Consequently, the Commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared," she said.

LightSquared said it "profoundly disagrees" with the conclusion, saying the decision disregards "more than a decade of regulatory orders, and in doing so, jeopardize[s] private enterprise, jobs and investment in America's future," the company said in a statement.

Backed by hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone, LightSquared has promised to "unleash the boundless opportunity of wireless broadband connectivity for all."

"We believe that it is time to transform the broadband industry to one that truly fosters innovation, creativity, and freedom of choice—with limitless and unimaginable possibilities," the company said in a statement on its Website.

But the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) said in a letter to the FCC yesterday that there was "no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time." The FCC issued its statement this morning.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken the first steps to fund an expansion of broadband Internet service to rural America, proposing an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund, set up decades ago to expand rural telephone service.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined the proposal in a speech in Washington, suggesting that the $8 billion subsidy be directed to making broadband Internet as common as landline telephone service.

“Broadband has gone from being a luxury to a necessity for full participation in our economy and society,” Genachowski said. “If we want the United States to be the world's leading market” for innovation, “we need to embrace the essential goal of universal broadband, and reform outdated programs.”

New objectives

Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Universal Service Fund operated as a mechanism by which interstate long distance carriers were assessed to subsidize telephone service to low-income households and high-cost areas. The Communications Act of 1934 stated that all people in the United States shall have access to “rapid, efficient, nationwide … communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.”

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional definition of universal service - affordable, nationwide telephone service – to include among other things rural health care providers and eligible schools and libraries.

The revamped Universal Service Fund would be renamed the Connect America Fund. It would pay for expanded broadband infrastructure in under-served areas and improve wireless coverage.

Rural options are limited

Currently, rural areas are served by two principal satellite Internet providers – HughesNet and Wild Blue – both of which have issues with latency. Some consumers also use the mobile broadband services offered by Verizon Wireless and AT&T. However, these services are at 3G speed in most areas and the more affordable plans are limited to 5 gigabytes of data per month.

"If adopted by the Commission, the plan will spur broadband build-out to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses beginning in 2012,” Genachowski said. “It will help cut the number of Americans bypassed by broadband by up to one half over the following five years, and it will put us on the path to universal broadband by the end of the decade. By connecting millions of unserved Americans who are being left out of the broadband revolution, this plan will bring enormous benefits to individual consumers, our national economy, and our global competitiveness."

The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) new rules maintaining Net neutrality have been challenged from an unlikely source.

Though major telecommunications firms don't like the concept, they have yet to express their objections in court. Instead, the activist group Free Press has been the first to file a legal challenge, a week after the Federal Register published the new rules.

The group filed the action in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, asking for a review of the FCC's December 2010 Open Internet order. Free Press is challenging what it called “the arbitrary nature” of rule provisions that provide less protection for mobile wireless Internet access than they do for wired connections.

"When the FCC first proposed the Open Internet rules, they came with the understanding that there is only one Internet, no matter how people choose to reach it,” said Matt Wood, Policy Director of Free Press. “The final rules provide some basic protections for consumers, but do not deliver on the promise to preserve openness for mobile Internet access. They fail to protect wireless users from discrimination, and they let mobile providers block innovative applications with impunity.”

No discrimination

Under the FCC's Net neutrality rules, networks are not allowed to discriminate against content, charging one provider more than another because of the nature of the content. But because telecommunications companies argued wireless networks, by their nature, have limits on their bandwidth, the rules provide more leeway for managing wireless networks. Wood says the distinction isn't real.

"Our challenge will show that there is no evidence in the record to justify this arbitrary distinction between wired and wireless Internet access,” he said. “The disparity that the FCC's rules create is unjust and unjustified. And it's especially problematic because of the increasing popularity of wireless, along with its increasing importance for younger demographics and diverse populations who rely on mobile devices as their primary means for getting online.”

The FCC proposed the rules last December. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowsk said they were based on more than 100,000 comments collected from all types of interested parties.

Major network providers have been staunchly opposed to most Net neutrality provisions. Broadband providers pushed to include language in the policy that would not encumber them when it comes to managing their networks or charging different prices for different levels of service. Wireless network providers objected to being lumped in with wired networks under any Net neutrality rules.  

It may not seem like it when you're waiting for a big file to load but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says broadband providers are generally living up to their promised speeds.

The agency studied residential Internet service offered by 13 large broadband providers – including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner – to subscribers during March. It found that Internet connections were generally within 80 to 90 percent of advertised maximum speeds.

The FCC set up an online speed test where consumers can check their Internet speed. Results of the tests were incorporated into the performance audit released today.

All three popular wired broadband delivery methods – fiber-optic cable, cable modems and DSL – do a good job of delivering promised speeds, even during peak periods, the study found.

But, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski noted, while existing broadband customers are generally well-served, nearly a third of Americans do not have service.

“That's nearly 100 million Americans who are being bypassed by the benefits of broadband. This is the broadband adoption gap,” Genachowski said.

Flying blind

While about 20 million Americans live in areas not served by broadband, many of those who are not yet connected lack the information they need to pick the service that's right for them, he said.

“While there's a flood of information to help consumers pick the right computer or gadget, when it comes to picking the service that brings those devices to life, consumers are largely flying blind,” Genachowski said. “80% of consumers don't know what speed they subscribe to. If you check your monthly broadband bill for specifics about the speed of your service, there's a good chance you won't find that information there. And if you did, it might not be in a language you can understand.

“How many people know what a megabit is?” he asked.

Genachowski, who spoke at a Best Buy store in downtown Washington, D.C., said the study released today was part of the agency's attempt to demystify the process and provide consumers with reliable information about the level of service available in their community.

Sen. Al Frankin (D-MN) is, by trade, a comedian, but he's been very serious as a lawmaker. Before an artists' group in Austin, Tex., Frankin warned that corporations are out to destroy the Internet, and it's no laughing matter.

"I came here today to warn you that the party may almost be over," Franken told artists attending the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. "There is nothing more motivated than a corporation that thinks it's leaving money on the table. They are coming after the Internet, hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important tool for independent artists and entrepreneurs -- its freedom and openness."

Franken recounted for his audience the ways in which the Internet has opened up opportunities for artists and benefited consumers. He said "Net neutrality" laws protecting equal access to the Internet are vital to protecting and maintaining those opportunities.

Equality

"Net neutrality means that content -- a web page, an email, a download -- moves over the Internet freely, and it moves at the same speed no matter what it is or who owns it," Franken said. "So an email from President Obama and an email from your Tea Partier uncle come in at the same speed."

Franken pointed out that Net neutrality is actually the status quo, and he wants to keep it that way. But he warns that major players in the industry have a vested interest in changing things, since they own the physical infrastructure that makes the Internet work.

"Now, let me say something about big corporations. They're not inherently evil," Franken said. "But corporations have a contractual duty -- a legal obligation to their shareholders-to make as much money as they can. And the big telecom companies make lots and lots of money off their ownership of the Internet -- but they've figured out a way to make more."

Paid prioritization

Franken said the industry wants to move toward something called "paid prioritization." There would be, in effect, a high-speed lane for corporations that can pay for it. That, he says, would make these corporations gatekeepers of the Internet, with the power to decide what content can get to its intended audience in the high-speed lane and what content gets stuck in traffic, depending on what makes the most money for their shareholders.

"For American consumers, this would of course be bad news," Franken said. "We'll have a lot fewer viewpoints represented online -- not just creative viewpoints, but maybe even ideological viewpoints. Do you think Comcast would refrain from making it harder for people to watch this speech online if they could do so legally?"

Franken says there are other issues at stake with Net neutrality. He pointed to the number of recent start-ups like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter that have created wealth and jobs. With the economy just beginning to recover from recession, he says, this job creation could be at risk. And that, he says, may provide the leverage necessary to preserve Net neutrality.

Speak up

"I haven't been in Washington that long, but I've heard enough from both parties to know that people there are desperate to hear from successful entrepreneurs like you," Franken said. "Job creators get their phone calls returned. Do not underestimate how much political power you have."

Just as the Internet has proven to be the last, best independent distribution system, he says artists and consumers might be the last, best hope for saving it.

"But we don't have much time," Franken concluded. "Net neutrality is in trouble."

How fast is your Internet connection? Really? Now you can find out, thanks to something called the National Broadband Map, a creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the Commerce Department, says the National Broadband Map is the first public, searchable nationwide map of broadband Internet availability.

The idea behind the map is to highlight areas that need to expand broadband access and adoption.

"A state-of-the-art communications infrastructure is essential to America's competitiveness in the global digital economy," said Acting Commerce Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank. "But as Congress recognized, we need better data on America's broadband Internet capabilities in order to improve them. The National Broadband Map, along with today's broadband Internet usage study, will inform efforts to enhance broadband Internet access and adoption -- spurring greater innovation, economic opportunities, and advancements in health care, education, and public safety."

Searchable records

The website includes more than 25 million searchable records showing where broadband Internet service is available, the technology used to provide the service, the maximum advertised speeds of the service, and the names of the service providers.

Users can search by address to find the broadband providers and services available in the corresponding census block or road segment, view the data on a map, or use other interactive tools to compare broadband across various geographies, such as states, counties or congressional districts. The map also allows visitors to enter information about their current Internet provider.

"The release of the National Broadband Map, the first of its kind in the nation, is a significant milestone," said Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski. "This cutting-edge tool will continue to evolve with the help of new data and user feedback. It will provide consumers, companies and policymakers with a wealth of information about broadband availability, speeds, competition and technology, and help Americans make better informed choices about their broadband services."

Underserved

The map shows that between 5 - 10 percent of Americans lack access to broadband at speeds that support a basic set of applications, including downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing. The FCC last July set a benchmark of 4 Mbps actual speed downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to support these applications.

NTIA collected data in ranges between 3 - 6 Mbps and 6 - 10 Mbps maximum advertised download speeds, which are the closest measurements to the speed benchmark for broadband that the FCC set.

The data show that community anchor institutions are largely underserved. For example, based on studies by state education technology directors, most schools need a connection of 50 to 100 Mbps per 1,000 students. The data show that two-thirds of surveyed schools subscribe to speeds lower than 25 Mbps, however. In addition, only four percent of libraries reported subscribing to speeds greater than 25 Mbps.

Approximately 36 percent of Americans have access to wireless (fixed, mobile, licensed, and unlicensed) Internet service at maximum advertised download speeds of 6 Mbps or greater, which some consider the minimum speed associated with "4G" wireless broadband service. Ninety-five percent of Americans have access to wireless Internet service speeds of at least 768 kbps, which corresponds roughly to "3G" wireless service.

Reason for the map

Why create the map? NTIA says the map will serve a variety of uses. For example, Federal, state, and local policymakers can compare broadband availability among geographic areas and across demographic groups, which can inform policies to support private sector investments in deploying broadband.

The data can assist broadband providers in assessing new business opportunities and economic developers as they work to attract businesses to, or address barriers to investment in, their communities. The map is also designed to help consumers and small businesses learn about the broadband service options in their neighborhood or where they may relocate.

EchoStar Corporation, which owns the Dish Network satellite television system, is purchasing Hughes Communications, Inc., which operates a satellite broadband Internet service, HughesNet.

The transaction is valued at approximately $2 billion, including Hughes debt expected to be refinanced in connection with the transaction. EchoStar said the deal will greatly enhance its capabilities for broadband transport of video and data.

Under the terms of the transaction, which has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, Hughes' shareholders will receive $60.70 per share without interest, which represents a premium of 31 percent over Hughes' unaffected closing share price of $46.43 on January 19, 2011.

Regulatory approval required

The transaction is expected to close later this year, subject to certain closing conditions including receipt of federal regulatory approvals. Investment funds affiliated with Apollo Management IV, L.P., who own a majority of Hughes' outstanding stock, have approved the transaction by entering into a written shareholder consent.

"We are very pleased to announce this transaction as it brings together the two premier providers of satellite communications services and delivers substantial value to our shareholders," said Pradman Kaul, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hughes. "By combining Hughes' operational strength and proven record of customer satisfaction with EchoStar's expertise in cutting edge satellite video technology, customers will benefit significantly from our shared institutional excellence."

"There is a unique and compelling fit between Hughes and EchoStar," said Michael Dugan, President and Chief Executive Officer of EchoStar. "With a rich engineering culture, an extensive fleet of owned and leased satellites, and experienced personnel in communications centers around the world, the combination of EchoStar and Hughes will create a powerful leader in video and data transport."

Rural service area

HughesNet offers broadband Internet services to customers in mostly rural areas, who do not have access to traditional wired or wireless broadband. Consumers often complain about bandwidth allotments and slow speeds.

"I have run numerous speed tests that point out that I am running at six percent of my hosts average speed," Kevin, of Moran, Kan., told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I call and complain and they tell me it will be fixed in two hours and to call back if the problem continues. I can't run very many speed tests because of their dismal download allowance."

Dish Network started as a mostly rural television provider but, in recent years, has begun competing in urban and suburban areas with cable TV providers.

Comcast has agreed to pay $23 million to Oregon consumers who said their late fees were excessive under that state’s law.

Under the terms of the settlement, affected consumers will receive $16 per illegal late fee, up to $32. Consumers who say they were charged more than two illegal late fees must present proof, such as a receipt or a cancelled check. Consumers can also collect more than $32 if they sign a notarized oath attesting to the numerous late fees. Comcast will also donate $75,000 to the Oregon Food Bank and the United Way.

Up to 75,000 Oregon consumers may be able to collect under the agreement.

Suit covers seven-year span

The suit, which was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, was certified as a class action last March, and proceeded on behalf of “all current and former Oregon residents who: 1) are or were Comcast cable television subscribers in Oregon after July 14, 2003 and 2) who, during the class period, paid a late fee responsive to a billing from Comcast that did not comply with [Oregon law].”

The settlement covers consumers who were charged excessive late fees between July 14, 2003 and November 22, 2010.

Economic Fairness Oregon, a consumer advocacy group based in Portland, predicted on its blog that “a large portion of this $23 million settlement will go unclaimed. Under current Oregon law, the remaining money will be returned to Comcast, despite the company’s alleged wrongdoing.”

“This case is a prime example of a company raking in huge amounts of money by unfairly charging tens of thousands of customers a relatively small amount,” the group continued. “Since many customers don’t have the time to challenge each $6 late fee, Comcast was able to overcharge millions of dollars in late fees from Oregonians over the span of the last seven years ... Thanks to class-action suits such as this, Comcast and other companies that choose not to play by the rules are held financially accountable for deceiving their customers.”

Liability denied

Comcast denied any liability in settling the suit, but “concluded that it is in the best interest of Plaintiffs and the Settlement Class ... to enter into [the] Settlement Agreement.” In a written statement, an Oregon representative of the company wrote that Comcast “denies liability and maintains that the late fees are legal.”

 Claim forms can be found at the official settlement website.

Consumer complaints

 ConsumerAffairs has heard from several Comcast customers complaining of late fees. As Marissa of Miami wrote:

"First off, I was already a Comcast customer but moved to a new location and they charged me another service of installation fee to have my service switched to the new address. Second, I set up automatic bill pay but for some reason it wasn't working. I was charged a $5 late fee for not having my payment in on time. When I spoke to Comcast they apologized and gave me a credit on my next bill. They assured me that automatic bill pay was set up properly but that sometimes it takes a couple of months to work.

"The next month the same thing happened. I had to go through the same process of calling them to credit my account. Again, they assured me it was set up properly and to just wait one more month. The same thing happened for a third time and I quit trying to use the automatic bill pay. They did credit my account but I had to spend time waiting on the phone and explaining the situation every time."

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission today adopted new Net neutrality rules, providing guidelines for both wired and wireless networks.

The policy, described by some as a compromise, passed along party-line votes, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposed. The rules are likely to be challenged in court in the year ahead.

Net neutrality refers to the principle that Internet content providers should have equal access to the Internet and  should suffer no restrictions on content, sites or platforms that may be attached. Network operators have generally objected to that principle, saying they have borne the cost of building and maintaining the network and should be allowed to control the amount of traffic traveling through it.

Under the new policy, crafted by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, there will be one set of rules for traditional wired networks, like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, and another for wireless providers like Verizon Wireless. The wired networks would be prohibited from blocking access to websites and applications, but the wireless providers would be able to block access to some apps.

Sen. Al Frankin (D-MN) was critical of that aspect of the policy, pointing out that Verizon Wireless would be free to block access to Google Maps, a free feature, making Verizon Wireless subscribers use the provider's maps app, which carries a fee.

The new policy would also not prohibit "paid prioritization," in which a content provider could pay a network a fee to provide faster, or more prioritized access, to its material.

Disappointment

Digital rights groups expressed some disappointment with the new policy, saying it was too weak and watered-down. Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of the Washington-based group Public Knowledge, said the policy"fell far short" of what it could have been.

"Instead of a rule that would protect everyone, from consumers to applications developers from predatory practices of telephone and cable companies, the Commission settled for much less," Sohn said."Instead of strong, firm rules providing clear protections, the Commission created a vague and shifting landscape open to interpretation.Consumers deserved better."

But having been rebuffed in court once already over the issue of Net neutrality, Genachowski may have looked for common ground.

"These rules fulfill a promise to the future, to companies that don't yet exist, and the entrepreneurs that haven't yet started work in their dorm rooms or garages," Genachowski said.

Second attempt

He noted that, at the moment, there are no enforceable rules to protect basic Internet values. And having failed in his first attempt to implement a Net neutrality policy, Genachowski may have looked for ways to compromise.

In April, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC,ruled the FCC lacked the authority to impose Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers and operators of broadband networks.

The unanimous finding overturned the FCC's cease and desist order against Comcast, which had imposed measures to slow traffic to what it considered heavy users. The Court said the FCC, in issuing the order, failed to cite any specific law passed by Congress. In effect, the judges found that the federal agency could not impose restraints on Internet providers without the backing of Congress.

In case there was any confusion about its position on Comcast's new fees, Level 3 Communications has issued another statement on the controversy.

The issue first surfaced last week when Level 3 complained that Comcast has announced its intention to levy ongoing fees for delivering content to Comcast, such as movies, that Comcast's subscribers have requested. Level 3 is a major supplier of streaming technology for NetFlix, which delivers video content via the Internet.

Comcast has countered that Level 3 is trying to gain an unfair advantage over competitors by using Comcast's network to deliver content without paying for it.

"Comcast's characterization could not be more misleading," Level 3 said in a statement."What is truly at stake is whether consumers should have unfettered access to all the content on the Internet without regard to whether that content happens to be owned or packaged by Comcast."

Net neutrality

Supporters of the concept of Net neutrality have seized on the controversy as an illustration of why the policy is needed. They say consumers will end up paying more for some content if network providers are able to discriminate among content providers. Opponents, on the other hand, say it perfectly illustrates why Net neutrality is unfair to network operators.

Level 3 says the disagreement is not a "peering dispute," as Comcast has characterized it.

"At issue is a fundamental interconnection disagreement between Comcast, as a provider of local high speed Internet access to consumers who pay Comcast for access to content, and Level 3, which delivers content to residential broadband access providers like Comcast in response to consumer requests," the company said.

Unlike "peering" in the Internet backbone, where competition abounds and prices have been declining steadily, Level 3 said, Internet carriers that have content requested by Comcast subscribers have no choice but to exchange traffic with Comcast.

"Comcast is using this dominant position to demand payment for traffic delivered at its customers' requests. You simply cannot "route around" Comcast to provide requested content to Comcast's subscribers," Level 3 said.

Commonplace and standard?

Comcast says the fees it charges are commonplace and standard within the industry. Level 3 says that's not the case.

"No other broadband access provider in the U.S. is now charging Level 3 the type of fees that Comcast is charging," the company said. "It is Comcast that seeks to change the common approach, changing the rules of the game in an unreasonable and discriminatory manner."

The controversy began last month with NetFlix retained Level 3 to provide the bulk of the streaming services needed to send movies to subscribers. Level 3 asked Comcast and other Internet Service Providers to give it more access to their networks so they could handled the expected increase in traffic from NetFlix.

When Level 3 asked Comcast for new interconnection ports to its network, it didn't expect to pay anything for that since it said it was providing content requested by Comcast customers. Comcast, while also sells video content to its subscribers, views it as unfair competition, and says paying a fee to deliver content over its network is reasonable.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski says he has drawn up draft rules that would provide the framework for a Net Neutrality policy. The FCC is expected to take up the policy proposal at its meeting December 21.

Genachowski said the draft is based on more than 100,000 comments the agency received from citizens and other interested parties.

"This framework, if adopted later this month, would advance a set of core goals: It would ensure that the Internet remains a powerful platform for innovation and job creation; it would empower consumers and entrepreneurs; it would protect free expression; it would increase certainty in the marketplace, and spur investment both at the edge and in the core of our broadband networks,” Genachowski said today in a speech in Washington.  

In recent months Net neutrality has evolved into a partisan issue. Democrats generally favor it while Republicans generally oppose it, calling it bad for business. But in his remarks today, Genachowski says Net neutrality started out as a bi-partisan issue.

Republican roots

"The proposed rules of the road are rooted in ideas first articulated by Republican Chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin, and endorsed in a unanimous FCC policy statement in 2005," Genachowski said. "Similar proposals have been supported in Congress on a bipartisan basis.  And they are consistent with President Obama's commitment to 'keep the Internet as it should be -- open and free.'"

In short, Net neutrality would require major network operators - Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, to treat all content the same. It couldn't charge more for video content distribution, for example, even though video content uses more bandwidth.

It would also not favor one provider's content over another. As the name implies, Internet Service Providers would have to remain neutral.

Major network providers have been staunchly opposed to most Net neutrality provisions. Broadband providers want to include language in any policy that would not encumber them when it comes to managing their networks or charging different prices for different levels of service. Wireless network providers are insisting that they be exempt from any Net neutrality rules.

Goodbye to unlimited bandwidth?

Under Genachowski's proposal, broadband providers would be able to impose usage-based charges on consumers, so that consumers - not the content provider - would bear the cost of extra bandwidth usage. For example, Verizon Wireless now offers a mobile broadband service that gives consumers about five gigabytes of bandwidth per billing cycle for a set price. Consumers who exceed that limit pay extra.

Genachowski said his proposal, which would establish open Internet rules for the first time, has three main points:

• First, consumers and innovators have a right to know basic information about broadband service, like how networks are being managed.  The proposed framework therefore starts with a meaningful transparency obligation, so that consumers and innovators have the information they need to make smart choices about subscribing to or using a broadband network, or how to develop the next killer app.  Sunshine can help solve problems early, reducing the number of issues that even come to the FCC. 

• Second, consumers and innovators have a right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic -- to go where they want and say what they want online, and to use the devices of their choice.  Thus, the proposed framework would prohibit the blocking of lawful content, apps, services, and the connection of non-harmful devices to the network.

• Third, consumers and innovators have a right to a level playing field.  No central authority, public or private, should have the power to pick which ideas or companies win or lose on the Internet; that's the role of the market and the marketplace of ideas.  And so the proposed framework includes a bar on unreasonable discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic. 

"The animating force behind all of these efforts is a shared appreciation for the Internet's wondrous contributions to our economy and our way of life," Genachowski said.

The FCC Chairman tried to quash speculation that the FCC action is designed as an end-run around Congress, which has yet to act on a Net neutrality proposal, even with Democrats in control. Republican control of the House in the next Congress makes Congressional support for a Net neutrality policy even more unlikely.

"As always, I welcome the opportunity for the Commission to serve as a resource to Congress," Genachowski said. 

Level 3 Communications, a major supplier for Netflix, says Comcast has begun charging an extra fee anytime one of its customers orders a movie for online streaming.

Net neutrality proponents say it's a perfect illustration of what Net neutrality is all about.

Netflix supplies movie and other video content to millions of customers. Until recently customers received the content on DVDs through the U.S. Mail. But the company has encouraged subscribers with broadband Internet connections to download their movies instead.

Not only does the customer get the movie instantly, there are no postage and handling costs. Netflix recently rolled out a new download-only service at a reduced price.

Level 3 is one of the companies Netflix uses to actually provide the streaming technology. Now, all of a sudden, Level 3 says Comcast is taking on an extra fee anytime one of its subscribers downloads a Netflix movie.

While Level 3 is crying foul, Comcast - and other major network operators - have pointed out that content that uses huge chunks of bandwidth should be subjected to a different rate structure.

But under Net neutrality, that couldn't happen. If a policy of Net neutrality were in force, Comcast and other networks could not discriminate against different kinds of content, treating an email the same as a video.

"This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access," said Thomas Stortz, Level 3's chief legal officer.. "With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast's subscribers at all, unless Comcast's unilaterally determined toll is paid."

Level 3 said it intends to register its complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, which reportedly plans to consider implementing a Net neutrality policy when it meets in mid-December.

While the lame-duck Congress grapples with some unfinished business, the Federal Communications Commission may be preparing a major push to implement Net neutrality policies before the end of the year.

Various media reports late last week suggested the FCC is readying an announcement this week that it will impose rules to prevent Internet service providers from favoring one provider's content over another. The Financial Times reports that industry executives fully expect the new regulations before the new Congress is seated.

That has set off some Congressional Republicans, who are generally opposed to the Net neutrality concept. They appealed last week to the White House to wait until next year to address the issue.

Equal footing

Net neutrality refers to the principle that Internet content providers should have equal access to the Internet should suffer no restrictions on content, sites or platforms that may be attached. Network operators, such as AT&T, have objected to that principle, saying they have borne the cost of building and maintaining the network and should be allowed to control the amount of traffic traveling through it.

In April a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled the FCC lacks the authority to impose Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers and operators of broadband networks.

The unanimous finding overturned the FCC's cease and desist order against Comcast, which had imposed measures to slow traffic to what it considered heavy users. The Court said the FCC, in issuing the order, failed to cite any specific law passed by Congress. In effect, the judges found that the federal agency could not impose restraints on Internet providers without the backing of Congress.

No Congressional action

With Republicans controlling the House in 2011, it may be unlikely that Congress will provide that backing. In fact, with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress for nearly two years, Net neutrality legislation hasn't gotten very far. President Obama has consistently supported Net neutrality and his choice of Julius Genachowski to head the FCC was seen as an additional statement of support, since Genachowski was known to be a strong proponent of the concept.

Before the November elections changed the political landscape in Washington, lawmakers were proceeding on a Net neutrality bill authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).That bill managed to gain the support of some of the industry's major players, but Republicans remained opposed.

Hoping to head off a unilateral move by the FCC, 18 Republican members of Congress have fired off a letter to Genachowski, asking him not to impose Net neutrality rules.

The Internet Governance Forum in Lithuania is set to consider 12 principles of Internet governance that would, among other things, uphold the existing support of net neutrality.

Under the proposal, countries would agree to work across borders to secure the Internet's infrastructure and to keep it safe from cyber attacks. It would also uphold freedom of expression and association and require that all Internet traffic receive equal treatment, a cornerstone of net neutrality.

Currently, some countries do not allow free expression online, or free access to opinions not favored by particular governments.

"The fundamental functions and the core principles of the Internet must be preserved in all layers of the Internet architecture with a view to guaranteeing the interoperability of networks in terms of infrastructures, services and contents," the proposal states. "The end-to-end principle should be protected globally.

A group called the Council of Europe, made up of 47 member countries, presented the proposal as a way to advance democracy and human rights, it said. It's also viewed as an attempt to blunt various government attempts to increase control over the Web.

In the U.S. the Obama Administration has supported the concept of net neutrality. Late last year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously today to begin the process of crafting formal net neutrality rules.

"Any rules we adopt must preserve our freedom to connect, to communicate, and to create that is the wonder of the open Internet," FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said at the time. "Each and every user of the Internet must have access to an unlimited online universe of ideas and commerce."

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

July 23, 2010
If you have long distance service, you pay into the Universal Service Fund, established by Congress in the early 20th century to expand telephone service to rural areas.

Since rural America currently enjoys telephone service, wouldn't it make more sense to use that money to expand broadband services to rural areas? Lawmakers in both parties think it might.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) have introduced the Universal Service Reform Act of 2010. They say the measure would improve and modernize the Universal Service Fund (USF) by reining in the size of the fund and promoting broadband deployment.

"The Universal Service Fund is broken," Boucher said. "Consumers currently pay more than thirteen percent of long distance revenues into the fund and have at times this year contributed over fifteen percent. Our legislation is a comprehensive and forward-looking measure, which will control the spiraling growth of the Universal Service Fund while ensuring that sufficient universal service support is available on a technology-neutral basis to the carriers which rely on it to provide service."

"The measure will expand who pays into the fund, control the growth of the fund and modernize the fund by allowing its use for the deployment of high-speed broadband service," said Terry.

Expanding broadband

The legislation declares broadband to be a universal service and requires universal service fund recipients to offer high-speed broadband services throughout the areas where they receive support. The measure recognizes that it may not be economical to serve the most remote areas with wireline technologies and permits the resale of satellite broadband to ensure broadband availability in those places.

"The current Universal Service fund has failed to keep up with the changing telecommunications landscape," said Terry. "This bill is a comprehensive approach that will ensure high speed broadband service is available to many more customers in Nebraska and across the nation, especially in rural areas."

Providers generally welcomed the bill. Verizon issued a statement congratulating Boucher and Terry for updating the Universal Fund for the broadband era.

"They recognize the universal service program was designed for a different time and that with consumers shouldering its ever-increasing costs, reform is overdue," the company said in a statement.

"We agree that universal service reform is necessary and look forward to working with Congressmen Boucher and Terry to make certain that the universal service program serves the needs of 21st century consumers, who are increasingly relying on their wireless services and products for everything from health to learning," said CITI, an association representing wireless providers.

Competitive bidding

Boucher and Terry say their bill will limit universal service support in areas where there is competition among providers of voice and broadband services and direct the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a competitive bidding process to determine which wireless carriers will receive universal service support.

The measure also directs the FCC to establish and implement performance goals for each universal service fund program and to determine the appropriate methodology for audits of universal service fund recipients.

The unanimous finding overturned the FCC's cease and desist order against Comcast, which had imposed measures to slow traffic to what it considered heavy users. The Court said the FCC, in issuing the order, failed to cite any specific law passed by Congress. In effect, the judges found that the federal agency could not impose restraints on Internet providers without the backing of Congress.

The decision, at first glance, would appear to be a severe setback to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's goal of enacting a sweeping Net neutrality policy covering the entire Internet. However, if Congress passes legislation upholding the Net neutrality principle, presumably the policy would pass legal muster.

Net neutrality refers to the principle that Internet content providers should have equal access to the Internet should suffer no restrictions on content, sites or platforms that may be attached. Network operators, such as AT&T, have objected to that principle, saying they have borne the cost of building and maintaining the network and should be allowed to control the amount of traffic traveling through it.

Outlook uncertain

The outlook for Congressional action is somewhat uncertain. In 2006 Congress rejected a number of bills that would have granted the FCC more power to enforce Net neutrality policies. But at the time, Republicans controlled Congress.

Will it be any different now that the Democrats are in charge? Democrats have been in control for three years and so far, Net neutrality legislation remains stalled.

President Obama has consistently supported Net neutrality and his choice of Genachowski to head the FCC was seen as an additional statement of support, since Genachowski was known to be a strong proponent of the concept.

Before becoming Chairman of the FCC, Genachowski was a co-founder of LaunchBox Digital and Rock Creek Ventures. He worked as an executive at IAC/InterActiveCorp, with owns several major Web sites.

By Marian Wang, ProPublica

March 18, 2010
Since the FCC formally revealed its plan to expand broadband access on Tuesday, the idea has been generally well-received. And really, what’s there to protest so far? The plan’s stated goal is to connect “100 million households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second service, building the world’s largest market of high-speed broadband users and ensuring that new jobs and businesses are created in America.” It also stresses making broadband faster and more powerful.

So far the only group consistently cited as being the “loser” in all of this is the National Association of Broadcasters, which has expressed reservations about losing its portion of the airwaves to make room for the broadband providers. But which industry players stand to win big if the plan moves forward? Here’s what the Post reported on this point:

Mid-size broadband providers, such as TW Telecom and Cbeyond, are shaping up to be the plan’s biggest beneficiaries, gaining access to more subscribers and the rights to federal funds to expand their networks. Makers of network equipment, such as Cisco, and creators of Web-based content, such as Google, could also experience significant boosts in their business. And cellphone carriers could reap big gains from a proposal to allocate a large chunk of airwaves for the next generation of smartphones and portable devices.

The Post went on to draw a distinction between midsize and major providers:

Major providers, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications, would gain broader subscriber bases, but they could be forced to share their wireless and fixed-wire networks with smaller rivals, exposing them potentially to stiffer competition.

These major providers, while they’re now giving statements of tentative support to the press—with caveats advocating less regulation—are the same ones who’ve beenpushing for this kind of proposal for years. 

A letter the providers sent to lawmakers in July 2008 details their support. In the letter (PDF), AT&T and Verizon urged Congress to enact legislation to expand broadband access. The letter’s 31 signatories included major broadband providers, but also groups as wide-ranging as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, American Association of People with Disabilities, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and U.S. Cattlemen’s Association.

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which was the largest lobbying group in the entertainment industry in 2009, also signed on to the letter. Comcast, also one of the biggest lobbyists in the industry, signed on too. Since the FCC announced its plan, both the cable lobbying group and Comcast executives have already written blog posts detailing how they would like the FCC to implement it. Together, the three top groups—in third, the National Association of Broadcasters, which has its concerns about the plan—spent nearly $40 million on lobbying in 2009.

And for concerned consumers, the Post points out that the plan “only sets the goal of ‘affordable’ broadband services,” but does not tackle prices through rules or caps.

© Copyright 2010 Pro Publica Inc.

It's all part of the government agency's National Broadband Plan, allowing Internet users to check ISP speed claims and allow consumers to report areas where broadband is not available.

"Transparency empowers consumers, promotes innovation and investment, and encourages competition," said Chairman Julius Genachowski. "The FCC's new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country. By informing consumers about their broadband service quality, these tools help eliminate confusion and make the market work more effectively."

The Consumer Broadband Test measures broadband quality indicators such as speed and latency, and reports that information to consumers and stores the data at the FCC. The mobile version -- the FCC's first mobile app -- is available through the Apple and Android app stores. The fixed version is available at www.broadband.gov.

Two popular broadband testing tools are used in this beta version -- the Ookla, Inc. Speed Test and the Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) running on the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) platform. In the future, the FCC anticipates making additional broadband testing applications available for consumer use. The Commission does not endorse any specific testing application.

The Broadband Dead Zone Report enables consumers to submit the street address location of a broadband "Dead Zone" where broadband is unavailable for purchase. The Broadband Dead Zone Report form is available online. Consumers can also submit availability information by e-mail to fccinfo@fcc.gov. Those who lack online access can call the FCC at 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-TELL-FCC), send a fax to 1-877-627-7460, or mail the information to:

The FCC says the new tools help it gather data to analyze broadband performance and availability on a geographic basis across the US. Use of the tools is voluntary, the agency says, and it pledges to protect the personal privacy of consumers utilizing these tools, and will not publicly release any individual personal information gathered.

The National Broadband Plan also contains a series of recommendations aimed at helping consumers understand the gap between actual broadband speeds delivered and the maximum speed tiers advertised.

Working recommendations include a scientific third-party study on actual broadband performance, a working group to help inform standards for broadband speeds, and further proposals on disclosure needs for fixed broadband services, such as a "digital label."

If you happen to live in a rural area of America, chances are your Internet options are limited. While federal stimulus money has been allocated to expand broadband services to rural areas, a new study suggests rural residents shouldn't get their hopes up.

Analysis of most recent FCC data reveals that about 45 million of the more than 117 million US households have no Internet service. When "no Internet" households are added to those households using dial-up to reach the Internet, the number of non-broadband households approaches 58 million, according to a new market research study from The Insight Research Corporation.

These 58 million non-broadband households represent 49 percent of the households in the US. According to Insight Research's market analysis study projecting the FCC 2008 data to year-end 2009 and taking into account further broadband penetrations, it is estimated that 40 million households will still lack broadband access at the close of 2014.

Major providers of broadband services, such as Verizon, have hesitated to invest in some rural markets because of small customer bases spread out over large areas, which can make infrastructure investment costly. As a result, most rural residents who want broadband have only the alternative of satellite broadband from either Hughesnet or Wild Blue, both of which can be problematic.

"Living in a rural area, I unfortunately signed on (to Hughesnet)," Earl, of Warrenton, Va., told ConsumerAffairs.com. "Tech support that you can't understand. Service kept dropping off, their contract serviceman on site 4 different occasions, personally observed the problem, and could not correct it. Cancelling the non-functional service cost me $300."

Joel, of Ramah, N.M, says Wild Blue isn't the answer either.

"My download speeds have progressively become slower to the point I am giving up," he told ConsumerAfffairs.com. "It now takes several minutes to download ONE song and even then it stops several times, making a download for editing impossible. They promised to take care of the problem but after 5 months nothing has happened unless becoming even slower is the promised change."

If these consumers are hoping the federal stimulus will provide an answer to their broadband problems, the study says they are in for a disappointment. Current federal Stimulus spending of $6.4 billion would allow for an investment of $164 per household to provide broadband access to the non-broadband households, the study finds.

The availability of such a small investment amount per household casts serious doubt that any significant expansion of broadband access will result from this government action, the authors say. This position is further bolstered by the argument that, at the current estimate of $1,500 per household, at least $60 billion would be needed to deploy universal broadband access.

"Certainly the current administration recognizes the direct relationship between extending broadband access to all Americans and the future health of our economy, but the current allocation of funds is just not going to get the job done," said Robert Rosenberg, President, Insight Research. "Our analysis found that a substantial portion of the 49 percent without broadband had no computers in their homes. There is a chicken and egg problem here that needs to be considered by our policy makers."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously today to begin the process of crafting formal rules for "net neutrality," the principle that all content on the Internet should be equally accessible to all users, and that companies cannot discriminate or block one set of content in favor of another.

The Commission agreed at its monthly open meeting to publish a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" that would solicit public comment on how best to create rules for ensuring net neutrality, while enabling Internet service providers and telecom networks to continue policing their systems for spam and illegal content.

"Any rules we adopt must preserve our freedom to connect, to communicate, and to create that is the wonder of the open Internet," said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski in prepared remarks. "Each and every user of the Internet must have access to an unlimited online universe of ideas and commerce."

Under the proposed rulemaking, net neutrality rules:

• would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the users choice over the Internet;

• would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the users choice;

• would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the users choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;

• would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the users entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers, and content providers;

• would be required to treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner; and

• would be required to disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in this rulemaking.

Not a clean sweep

Commissioner Michael Copps praised the ruling. "The Internet must never be about powerful gatekeepers and walled gardens," he said. "It must always be about the smoothest possible flow of communications among people."

Although the commission -- 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans -- voted unanimously to support it, several members offered some dissent. "Freedom is best served if we promote abundance, collaboration and competition over regulation and rationing," said Republican commissioner Robert McDowell. "No government has ever succeeded in mandating innovation and investment."

McDowell emphasized that he was voting in favor of the rulemaking process, as opposed to the overall principle, and quoted former President Bill Clinton's support of limited government intervention in the communications marketplace as support for his position..

"Before imposing new rules, we need to carefully think through all potential unintended consequences that could harm consumers by increasing prices, impeding innovation, eliminating choices, and/or reducing quality of service," said new commissioner and former National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) head Meredith Atwell-Baker.

But Baker's fellow new commissioner Mignon Clyburn used her story of running a small weekly newspaper in her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina -- which eventually closed down -- to illustrate the need for net neutrality. "To me, that is what this proceeding is all about: preventing barriers to entry and ensuring that Americans have access to the best and most useful information and services," she said.

No easy victory

Supporters and opponents of net neutrality alike were already marshaling forces in advance of today's decision. Ben Scott, director of consumer advocacy group Free Press, hailed the vote as "an important step toward securing the open Internet and a victory for the public interest."

Free Press and its opponents, such as AT&T, have been dueling it out in the marketplace over whether or not net neutrality would hamper or spur innovation and investment in America's Internet industry.

AT&T recently circulated a letter among its employees urging them to write the FCC and media outlets with those claims, while Free Press fired back with a report claiming that an open Internet would encourage investment from new companies.

The rules also face a rocky road in Congress. Several Senators have introduced legislation that would codify net neutrality into law, while others are ramping up opposition to the new rules.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who opposed net neutrality regulations in his 2008 presidential bid, promptly introduced legislation in the Senate to block the FCC from making its proposed rules law. In a Washington Times editorial, McCain compared the rules to the government's bailouts of the auto and financial industries, as another "power grab" for control.

"These new rules should rightly be viewed by consumers suspiciously as another government power grab over a private service provided by private companies in a competitive marketplace. Does that sound familiar? It should," he wrote.

The Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics recently published a joint report documenting the massive amounts of money donated by telecom companies and their political lobby groups to members of Congress in order to influence their votes -- totaling $9.4 million dollars between January 2007 and June 2009.

The top recipient of donations was Senator McCain.

The issue of net neutrality--guaranteeing the right of Internet users to access all Web content equally--has been on the back burner in Congress recently, but with growing concern about competition in the wireless Internet market, two representatives today introduced new legislation to enshrine net neutrality into law.

Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) introduced the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" of 2009 (aka H.R. 3458), which would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to cover net neutrality to "protect the right of consumers to access lawful content, run lawful applications, and use lawful services of their choice on the Internet," according to the bill.

"A network neutrality policy based upon the principle of nondiscrimination and consistent with the history of the Internet's development is essential to ensure that Internet services remain open to al consumers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and providers of lawful content, services, and applications," the legislation said.

The bill offers provisions for "reasonable network management," the language coined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a standard for measuring whether Internet service providers are blocking content from users or favoring some offerings over others, but "only if it furthers a critically important interest."

The legislation calls for the FCC to conduct eight public broadband summits around the country, within a year of the bill's passage, in order to solicit opinions from the public and various stakeholders on the U.S.'s Internet-related policies.

"The Internet has thrived and revolutionized business and the economy precisely because it started as an open technology," Rep. Eshoo said. "This bill will ensure that the non-discriminatory framework that allows the Internet to thrive and competition on the Web to flourish is preserved at a time when our economy needs it the most."

Media activists and supporters of net neutrality cheered the introduction of the bill. "The future of the Internet as we know it depends on maintaining freedom and openness online," said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press. "This crucial legislation will help to ensure that the public -- not big phone and cable companies -- controls the fate of the Internet."

The issue of unrestricted Internet access has gained new traction on Capitol Hill in the wake of reports that Apple and AT&T are each blocking or preventing users from accessing services for the mega-popular iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T at the moment.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski recently sent letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google asking why Google Voice, the company's popular free calling service, was rejected for use on the iPhone. Critics say the issue is related to net neutrality, as companies should not be allowed to prevent customers from utilizing legal programs of their choosing on their devices--or computers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today launched the first phase of its "national broadband plan" to bring affordable, high-speed Internet to all Americans. As part of the economic stimulus plan passed by Congress, the agency must complete the plan by February 17, 2010.

The FCC began the process through an open meeting this morning in Washington, D.C., where it solicited public input from interested parties on several key issues relating to broadband access, including:

• How to achieve broadband access for Americans most effectively

• Evaluating current broadband deployment programs, including grants, for success or failure

• How to best use broadband to improve the economy, health care, energy independence, job creation, public safety, and national security

"Broadband can be the great enabler that restores Americas economic well-being and opens doors of opportunity for all Americans to pass through, no matter who they are, where they live, or the particular circumstances of their individual lives," said acting FCC chairman Michael Copps. "It is technology that intersects with just about every great challenge confronting our nation."

Under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, Congress granted $7.2 billion for investment in broadband access expansion, to be coordinated by the FCC and disbursed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) rural broadband initiative, and the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The three agencies are holding multiple public meetings across the country to get input from citizens, businesses, local and state governments, and entrepreneurs on the best ways to invest the stimulus money.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, who is resigning his position to head up the USDA's broadband disbursement efforts, said that the plan "will require unprecedented [federal] interagency coordination, which we are already seeing on a scale that dwarfs any efforts in the previous Administration."

President Barack Obama made extension of broadband access a priority plank in his electoral campaign, drawing a contrast between himself and former President Bush, who was criticized for not doing more to address the "digital divide" of lack of affordable, accessible Internet service for minority, low-income, and rural communities.

According to media watchdog group Free Press, even within America's most tech-savvy cities, including Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, many communities and neighborhood have little or no access to high-speed Internet service, and the high costs put broadband out of reach for many families.

"In Washington, where BlackBerries are everywhere, only 52 percent of homes are connected to broadband," the group said in its report,Wired Less: Disconnected in Urban America. "In total, more than 240,000 D.C. residents are not connected to the Internet at home, and nearly 160,000 have no Internet access at all."

S. Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, said that it was crucial that the broadband plan not fall victim to previous approaches which favored deregulatory, hands-off policies — leading to higher prices, lower speeds, and less competition among Internet service providers.

"If we want to see any improvement in the availability and adoption of broadband in this country, we need a strong government watchdog and a broadband plan that puts the public interest ahead of Wall Street's whims," Turner said.

President Obama has officially named Julius Genachowski to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a move that cheered supporters of Net neutrality.

"He will bring to the job diverse and unparalleled experience in communications and technology, with two decades of accomplishment in the private sector and public service," Obama said in making the announcement.

Genachowski is a lawyer who has spent time in politics as well as in the private sector, as an Internet executive. He was rumored to be in line for the job, since he played a key role in Obama's Internet strategies during the campaign and had been chief counsel to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.

Industry analysts predict Genachowski will advance the Democratic Party's support for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by much of the telecommunications industry. To date, the FCC has come down on the side of Net neutrality, ruling last summer that Comcasts limiting of BitTorrent was illegal.

Genachowski is a co-founder of LaunchBox Digital and Rock Creek Ventures. He worked as an executive at IAC/InterActiveCorp, with owns several Web sites.

President-elect Barack Obama pledged to expand Americans' access to broadband Internet as part of a massive new public works program designed to generate jobs and improve the economy, he said in his weekly video/radio address.

"As we renew our schools and highways, we'll also renew our information superhighway," Obama said. "It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they'll get that chance when I'm President — because that's how we'll strengthen America's competitiveness in the world."

Obama said that broadband investment could also help modernize health care systems, through sharing and storing medical information and health records online, enabling doctors to offer care more efficiently.

"We will make sure that every doctor's office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year," Obama said.

Media action groups such as Free Press commended Obama's proposals, but said more work needed to be done to bridge "the digital divide."

"In our 21st-century society, having a connection to a fast and affordable Internet is no longer a luxury — it's a public necessity," said Free Press' executive director Josh Silver. "Obama's broadband stimulus must deliver Americans the infrastructure they need for economic growth and social opportunity."

Advocates have been pushing broadband investment not only as an economic driver in its own right, but as a means to aiding other crises. App-Rising.com's Geoff Daily urged the Obama administration to pursue an aggressive strategy of broadband investment and expansion, especially for rural communities that lack high-speed Internet access.

"If we don't step up and do something big, we may not have a rural America in 10 or 20 years," Daily said. "If we take the initiative to wire them for the 21st century infrastructure, they can not only survive, they can thrive."

Many groups have been offering policy papers and plans for how best to implement a nationwide broadband investment program. Free Press' "2009 Media & Tech Priorities" plan emphasizes reform of the government agencies tasked to handle Internet issues, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunication & Informat