Network Neutrality

Gov Steve Bullock (D-MT) signed an executive order to protect network neutrality on Jan 22. But with questions raised about whether Gov Bullock is exceeding his authority, the governor's legal office prepared a fact sheet that it's distributing to anyone curious about potential legal challenges to the executive order.

When the Federal Communications Commission overturned the network neutrality rules in December 2017, it gave the green light to cable and other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to make the internet start looking more like cable TV.

Gov Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) said he has signed an executive order that would require internet service providers with state contracts to abide by network neutrality rules, even though the Federal Communications Commission recently voted to repeal those rules.  The new policy aims to protect consumers by using the state's lucrative information technology contracts as leverage over internet companies. It's similar to one enacted through executive order Jan 22 by Gov Steve Bullock (D-MT) and comes as states consider how to respond to the FCC repeal. 

The Federal Communications Commission released an 8-page document outlining "A Year of Action and Accomplishment" led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, broken down into the following categories: bridging the digital divide, promoting innovation and investment, protecting consumers and enhancing public safety, transparency and process reforms, and cutting and modernizing outdated regulations. 

AT&T called on Congress to enact a national network neutrality law. Here's the reaction.

Burger King is blasting the Federal Communications Commission's decision to scrap network neutrality rules in a new ad released Jan 24, using its signature sandwich to do it.  The fast food chain posted a video illustrating what it would be like if its restaurants implemented a policy of "Whopper neutrality," in which customers had to pay more to receive their burger faster. Customers ordering Whoppers were given the option to pay for various MBPS — "Making Burgers Per Second" — rates. The slowest rate cost only $4.99, but came with a long wait time.

Apple’s mobile-app marketplace has boundaries that Apple alone sets. A free network-diagnostic tool called Wehe is supposed to tell if your Internet provider is interfering with certain video apps' traffic, say on YouTube or Netflix, a question on the minds of people who argued for keeping the recently repealed net neutrality regulations designed to prevent providers from slowing or blocking legal content.  Northeastern University computer-science professor David Choffnes had shipped a version of this net-neutrality monitoring tool for Android app months ago without incident.

Government rules for the internet have been debated for nearly as long as the internet has existed, even before a professor coined the term “net neutrality” 15 years ago. The internet has changed our lives and grown beyond what anyone could have imagined. And it’s done so, for the most part, with very few—but often changing—rules. Regulators under four different presidents have taken four different approaches. Courts have overturned regulatory decisions. Regulators have reversed their predecessors.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's claim that repealing network neutrality rules will boost network investment didn't get much support from Verizon's latest spending forecast. Verizon's network spending won't change much in 2018, and the company also won't be using its newfound tax savings to upgrade its broadband networks. Verizon reported $17.2 billion of capital expenditures in calendar year 2017, with the net neutrality rules in place the entire year.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai actually allowed the weight of public comments on the FCC's proposed changes to network neutrality regulations to sway (or confirm) his position, he seems to have given more credence to the "opinions" of spam-generating software "bots" than actual citizens, researchers have found. Leah Figueroa, lead data engineer at the data analytics software company Gravwell, presented a detailed analysis of the public comments submitted to the FCC regarding network neutrality.