Tuesday, September 22, 2009

FCC Proposes New Net Neutrality Rules

The FCC issued yesterday its proposed plan for Net Neutrality in the United States, mandating that internet providers such as AT&T and Verizion are not allowed to filter content on their networks or use software that makes some websites or services slower than others on their networks.  A major part of the new rules are that they apply to wireless internet connections such as the iPhone's in addition to services such as Cable or DSL.  See the following video for Bloomberg's coverage:



I find it very important that the proposed rules or similar legislation gets passed in the United States because it gives power to consumers instead of the telecommunications companies.  Without regulations such as this, companies such as AT&T are able to do things like block using Skype on an iPhone over a 3G data connection as they currently do.  Acts such as this are anti-competitive and hurt the users of communication devices and services.  Thoughts?




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2 comments:

  1. Dollar BillSeptember 22, 2009 at 5:10 PM

    Will - it looks like this is a good case in which government intervention helps the consumer - I hope. I wonder if this will mean higher internet fees to accommodate all that extra band width. Someone has to bear the cost of this.

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  2. Will PetrovicSeptember 29, 2009 at 8:07 PM

    I have read that maintaining net neutrality on mobile devices could result in capped mobile internet connections on devices such as the iPhone as opposed to current unlimited connections.

    If you think about it, doing this is not "unfair" as some may claim. If I use my iPhone's internet connection to stream videos but another user uses theirs only for checking sports scores, it is fair to charge me more than they are charged. Of course I would not like this, but it would be fair.

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