Loading ...FCC proposal on net neutrality is a big win for open Internet advocates
In a surprising about-face, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is seeking to reclassify the Internet as a public utility
February 4, 2015 1:30PM ET
by Joshua Kopstein
Not long ago, net neutrality was little more than a buzzword to most Americans, an arcane concept within an equally arcane sector of telecommunications law. But fierce resistance to a plan proposed last spring by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler that Internet advocates said would have undermined net neutrality — the principle that all data traversing the Net should be treated equally by Internet service providers (ISPs) — has pushed the once obscure concept into the spotlight in Washington.
And today, as Wheeler prepares to deliver his latest proposal on net neutrality, advocates for an open Internet seem to have won.
The plan Wheeler announced last May would have permitted ISPs such as Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner to give faster, priority access to sites and services able to pay for it as long as those deals were deemed commercially reasonable. But in a surprising about-face, he is now proposing rules that ban that practice by treating wired and wireless broadband Internet as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — much like the telephone system.