Net Neutrality Rules Officially Repealed by U.S.A.

It is now official that the Net Neutrality Rules are no more. On Monday, the US Federal Communications Commission repealed the regulations governing how net providers should treat the data traveling through their networks. The rule required all companies and Internet Service Providers to handle all the data equally and further provide equal access to online content.

But just what is Net Neutrality? These are rules approved in 2015 by the FCC stipulating that an ISP ought to give their consumers equal access to every legal content, irrespective of the source of the data. It further prohibited internet providers from giving individual preference to specific websites or charging discriminatory for particular web content.

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For a better understanding, let us imagine that the internet is a motorway which has lanes for fast cars and others for slower vehicles like Lorries. Under the net neutrality law, the highway lacks this distinction. Instead, all the cars use the same lanes irrespective of their speed and size. Every data regardless of its size enjoys a level playing field.

The net effect is that no ISP in the US, be it Charter and AT&T, Comcast, or any other, could block, slow down or speed up content from a particular website, just because someone paid them to do so. Moreover, the providers cannot offer preferential treatment to their content at the expense of their competition.

Those in support of net neutrality argued that it is all about ensuring fairness, which lacked in the previous systems, whereby large Internet Service Providers could choke off smaller content providers.

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The opponents, however, believed that the regulations were not only outdated but unnecessary business restrictions that only ended up stifling investment in new technology. Ajit Pai, a vocal critic of the neutrality laws, opined that the rules were a brake on innovation. He pointed out that before the regulations came into being, ideas like Facebook, Google, and Amazon evolved from being relatively unknown startups to reputable global tech giants, making the US internet economy, an envy of the world. According to Ajit, repealing the regulations is beneficial to consumers since the laws turned off many telecoms companies that would have wished to invest.

The repealing of the net neutrality rules has elicited mixed reactions for sure. For starters, critics of the move fear that it will result in service providers overcharging consumers who require more than the basic services. The public also voiced their concern in protest saying that ending the rules will impact on freedom of speech.

While the horse seems to have bolted in December when the FCC took the vote to repeal the rules, and end the regulations, the debate seems far from over. Some states are keen on enacting similar legislation, which telecoms operating in their territories must observe. Washington, for instance, has such rules already in place, while California, Illinois, and New York are set to follow suit. Additionally, some state attorneys and consumer rights groups are legally challenging the FCC, while the US Congress intends to have a motion with the intent of overturning the FCC action.