ConFigures

Net Neutrality Ruled Beyond FCC’s Reach

Prodded by a couple of different friends and relatives, here’s my take on the federal court ruling this week re FCC/Comcast:  Legally this ruling may have been correct (EFF thought so), and I’m for the rule of law. However, if this decision stands, I hope some other (legal!) way to mandate/enforce net neutrality will work. Net neutrality wouldn’t stop providers from charging their *users* for however much content they upload/download, or from monitoring / downgrading heavy *users*, IF providers really do need to choke off bandwidth hogs (they haven’t provided convincing data about this — or about how their proposed solutions would fix the alleged issue). They don’t need to have the option to selectively block/downgrade particular services /traffic to discourage big data packets. I suspect they’re (providers) going on an artificial scarcity model, anyway.

Most of the essays/papers I’ve saved regarding Net Neutrality are from around 2006 (I was convinced for the need for it by then).   Many are still relevant, but for a more up-to-date view, Thomas Gideon’s The Command Line is my go-to tech policy / news blog these days.  His recent articles on net neutrality mostly just point to good reading on the topic by other folks, but occasionally he throws in some commentary of his own, and sometimes he writes longer pieces (as in the bandwidth hog myth link above).