Net Neutrality Major Victory For Free Speech As F.C.C. Democratic Majority Votes To Regulate Broadband High-Speed Internet Service As A Public Utility

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the F.C.C., with two fellow commissioners, Mignon Clyburn, left, and Jessica Rosenworcel, right, during an open hearing on Thursday ahead of a vote on net neutrality. Credit

Mark Wilson/Getty Images
   
       Thursday, 26 February 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C. - In what is being heralded as a huge victory for net neutrality and the preservation of an open Internet with even the unusual urging of President Obama and the voices of millions of Americans deluging Washington, D.C. the F.C.C. today voted 3-2 along party lines to reclassify high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications rather than an information service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act which therefore means it is treated as a public utility.
       The F.C.C. net neutrality rules expected to be available within a couple of days but not effective for a couple of months in addition to regulating wired lines also will encompass mobile data service for smartphones and tablets. The rules further will include provisions for the protection of consumer privacy as well as ensuring internet service for people with disabilities and in remote areas.
       The new rules will not adopt Title II provisions wholesale but will leave companies to make their own pricing and engineering network management decisions. Nevertheless the rules will pre-empt state laws that limit the buildout of municipal broadband Internet services focusing today on North Carolina and Tennessee although expected to establish a framework for all states including a total of 21 states that the F.C.C. counts currently as having laws limiting the activities of community broadband services.
       The latter has been an area of particular emphasis by President Obama even sitting on his desk demonstrating on his tablet the result of foresight by a few smaller American municipalities that started the buildout of their own broadband internet early on and whose citizens now enjoy internet speeds of about 100 times that of most major American cities. Perhaps ironically of the major cities shown by the President in a bar graph San Francisco fell by far in last place with the slowest internet speed.
       In President Obama's unusual public input into the F.C.C.'s independent decision the President also overall urged the "strongest possible rules" for net neutrality specifically urging the Commission to reclassify high-speed broadband Internet service as a utility as "[f]or most Americans, the internet has become an essential part of everyday communication and everyday life," according to today's New York Times article linked to below.
       The F.C.C. net neutrality decision today resulted from the votes in favor by the three Democrats on the Commission being Chairman Tom Wheeler and fellow commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel. Chairman Wheeler said the F.C.C. was doing everything in its power to protect innovators and consumers and preserve the Internet as a "core of free expression and democratic principles." The remaining two Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly delivered a "scathing critique" of today's F.C.C. decision as overly broad, vague and unnecessary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-vote-internet-utility.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to Mark Wilson / Getty Images photo)

LAST DAY PLEASE COMMENT NOW! Stop FCC Stealth Kill Of Your Internet For Big Business Control! Hands Off Our Internet Public Utility Of, By, And For The People! Drown the FCC in NO THANK YOU! Comments By Today Tuesday, 15 July 2014

       Sunday, 13 July 2014, WASHINGTON, D.C. - UPDATED. Fascinating if not so blatantly corrupt how the State never fails to "allow" the People the absolute least time possible to stand up and stop the biggest giveaways of the most valuable public property of our lifetimes. No excuses internet users indeed all Americans must now stand up to the corrupt State and Big Business thieves by the Tuesday, 15 July 2014 arbitrary deadline today and utterly drown the FCC with comments like those below NO THANK YOU! FCC State scum no killing off our internet public utility for one more huge permanent Big Business giveaway just like the State did with our TV and radio airwaves and railroad rights of way before that and so many other public resources that belong to the People alone. Stop these greed-crazed bums right here right now or we all surely will regret not taking but a minute to act now so as not to spend out our painfully slow lives idly waiting like slaves on blank screens while Big Business just keeps getting richer ripping us all off as it rams its "priority" trash through our internet that we let go. The reliable and WORKING internet EQUALLY accessible to all has come to define the great present-day public utility at the heart and core of our modern-day uncensored free network it holds us together and powers the unfettered exercise by all the People of the rights of religion, free speech, assembly and all our others with direct worldwide connection to all Peoples of our world as never before seen. But the very fear of the People claiming their vast freedoms which are their true birthright under the Constitution such that the State and Big Business cannot control and run roughshod over them makes the false of spirit weak at the knees and shake in their boots for they finally are exposed. The truth sets the People equal and free. And that drives the State and its Big Business bedfellows to madness. Do not let them steal one more public resource that is so vital. Do not let them steal your internet.

URGENT: Tell the FCC: Don’t kill the Internet Tom Wheeler, President Obama's newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), recently proposed adopting rules that will end Net Neutrality and kill the Internet as we know it. The fate of the Internet at stake, and we have three days to speak out by submitting public comments to the FCC before the July 15 deadline. Dear Martin, Tom Wheeler, the president's newly appointed FCC chair, recently proposed rules that would allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to divide the Internet into fast lanes for wealthy corporations and slow lanes for the rest of us. If adopted, these rules would amount to nothing less than the corporate takeover of the Internet and the death of Net Neutrality. However, because of a massive public backlash from open Internet supporters like you, Chairman Wheeler was forced to keep the door open for the change we really need -- reclassifying the Internet as a public utility, which is the only way to establish Net Neutrality regulations with teeth. The FCC is now accepting public comments on this proposal, but the current comment period ends this Tuesday. We need to make sure Chairman Wheeler and the rest of the FCC commissioners feel overwhelming pressure from the public to take the necessary step of reclassifying the Internet as a public utility. Click here to submit a public comment today. Net Neutrality is important because the Internet is an essential service Americans rely on to conduct our most basic daily affairs, from applying for a job to finding a home, to running a small business. And our right to communicate freely and be heard lies at the heart of our ability to participate equally in our democracy. A string of federal court cases has made it abundantly clear that the FCC has the power to enforce strong Net Neutrality rules, but only if the FCC goes through the process of undoing a terrible Bush-era decision to deregulate broadband instead of treating it like the vital public utility it has become. Chairman Wheeler says that he wants to preserve the open Internet. But his proposal explicitly states a preference for not reclassifying broadband -- the one and only thing that will allow the FCC to protect Net Neutrality and ban discrimination on the Internet. The public can’t be silent in the face of this. You can bet that Chairman Wheeler will be hearing from the army of lobbyists who work for the big telecoms intent on destroying Net Neutrality. We need to make sure he also hears from us. Don't delay. Click the link below to submit a public comment today. http://act.credoaction.com/go/5117?t=5&akid=11166.5397176.2sAwTE Thank you for speaking out to stop the corporate takeover of the Internet. Becky Bond, Political Director CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: Learn more about this campaign Share on Facebook Post to your wall Tweet this Post to Twitter © 2014 CREDO. All rights reserved.