This afternoon, HBO announced the details of its HBO Now streaming service that will finally allow consumers without cable TV to access the premium pay-TV network without having to be burdened with a cable bill for channels they don’t watch. But the fact that HBO has opted to go with Apple as its launch partner and not Comcast or any of the major pay-TV carriers is a reminder of just how important net neutrality is. [More]
net neutrality
Congresswoman Backed By AT&T, Comcast Introduces Bill To Kill Net Neutrality
By 3.5.15
While some members of Congress have argued that the best way to deal with net neutrality is to create a law that guides what broadband providers can and can’t do with regard to data, one legislator from Tennessee — who has received significant money from neutrality’s biggest opponents — has introduced a bill that would kill neutrality and strip the FCC of its authority to regulate broadband as a necessary piece of telecommunications infrastructure. [More]
Is Netflix Trying To Have Its Net Neutrality Cake And Eat It Too?
By 3.4.15
Last week’s vote by the FCC to approve new net neutrality rules was seen as a big win for streaming services like Netflix, as it prevents ISPs from throttling or blocking access to online content and from prioritizing any data. And indeed, Netflix has been one of the more vocal corporate cheerleaders for neutrality. But that apparently hasn’t stopped the company from making deals that calls into question Netflix’s actual stance on the issue. [More]
4 Things We Still Don’t Know About Net Neutrality
By 2.27.15
The FCC voted yesterday to reclassify broadband and protect the open internet. In other words, at long last, we have a net neutrality rule. And that’s great! But there is still a lot we don’t know, and there are a lot of questions left unanswered. Here are the major things we don’t know, and parts we’re waiting to better understand. [More]
From Applause To Lawsuits And Legislation: What Key Players Are Saying About Net Neutrality
By 2.26.15
Over the summer, we rounded up what all the key players in broadband and online were saying about the potential for the FCC to write a clear net neutrality rule. Earlier today, the FCC actually went and made that rule; here’s what everyone has to say about it now. [More]
FCC Officially Votes To Protect Net Neutrality, Reclassify Broadband
By 2.26.15
In a landmark decision today, the FCC voted 3-2 to create enforceable, bright-line rules protecting the open internet using their Title II authority to reclassify broadband internet as a telecommunications service. [More]
Google Fiber, Other ISP Heads Agree: We’ll Keep Investing No Matter What The FCC Does About Net Neutrality
By 2.25.15
With only hours remaining in the countdown to tomorrow’s net neutrality vote, everyone from Silicon Valley to Capitol Hill is getting their last words in. At a tech policy event in Washington, DC yesterday, a panel of ISP executives spoke about the future of competition, innovation, and network deployment as the regulations and the marketplace change around them. And when the moderator directly asked the speakers if Title II regulation would diminish investment in their networks, the answer was the same all around: nope. [More]
What You Need To Know About Tomorrow’s Votes On Net Neutrality And Municipal Broadband
By 2.25.15
On Thursday morning, the Federal Communications Commission will sit down to discuss and vote on two big issues — net neutrality and municipal broadband — that the cable and telecom industries have campaigned heavily to defeat and obscure. Because of these industry-backed efforts and the legalese involved, many consumers are having difficulty separating myth from reality. In an effort to cut through that haze, we’ve attempted to answer the most pressing questions about these two topics before tomorrow’s vote. [More]
These 2 Charts From Comcast Show Why Net Neutrality Is Vital
By 2.24.15
Comcast released its quarterly earnings report and the timing couldn’t be better, with the FCC set to vote on Chairman Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal later this week. [More]
Twitter Decides It Loves Net Neutrality, Endorses Proposed FCC Plan
By 2.23.15
With the FCC set at long last to vote on strong net neutrality protections later this week, everyone is getting their last digs in. While many tech companies have previously spoken out on the issue, both for and against, the big social networks have been slow to plant their flags. That changed today, when Twitter came out swinging, cheering on the FCC’s plan. [More]
Sprint Says Net Neutrality Won’t Stop Verizon, AT&T From Investing
By 2.12.15
Mouthpieces for the wireless industry would have you believe that the FCC’s pending net neutrality rules — which would reclassify both terrestrial and wireless broadband as a utility — will cripple investment and plunge us into an era where we carry around mammoth brick cellphones like Zack Morris. So why is Sprint telling everyone a completely different story? [More]
FCC Not Scared Of AT&T’s Plan To Sue Over New Neutrality Rules
By 2.6.15
Earlier this week, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler confirmed his intention to ask his fellow commissioners to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, which would give the FCC more authority to regulate it and prohibit anti-consumer practices like throttling and blocking of data. AT&T is already gearing up for a suit to stop this change, but the FCC is apparently not terribly worried. [More]
Wireless & Cable Industries Fight Net Neutrality With Laughably Misleading Op-Eds & Video
By 2.5.15
Yesterday, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler confirmed that he intends to have the Commission reclassify broadband as the vital piece of telecommunications infrastructure that it is, which has resulted in immediate backlash from the wireless and cable industry and the handful of astroturfed “advocacy” organizations they support. [More]
Despite Threats Of Disaster, Investors In Comcast, Verizon, Etc. All Seem Totally Fine With FCC’s Plan To Reclassify Broadband
By 2.4.15
For a year now, the big ISPs have been having a series of public freakouts that stronger net neutrality rules would make for an uncertain regulatory future, leave them exposed, drive investment down, and hurt their businesses. And yet earlier today the chairman of the FCC dropped his bombshell that the agency is going to aim for the strongest possible regulation anyway. So how’d the market respond?
The stocks all went up. [More]
FCC Chair Confirms Title II Approach To Net Neutrality; AT&T Already Warming Up For Lawsuit
By 2.4.15
In an op-ed today, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed what sources in the know have recently been saying: to preserve net neutrality, the FCC is indeed going to seek to regulate ISPs as Title II common carriers. [More]
Report: FCC Chair To Propose Actual Net Neutrality, Reclassification Of Broadband Services
By 2.3.15
It’s been a long strange year for the internet, after a court threw out the net neutrality rule in January, 2014. But after comments, protests, legal threats, and a whole lot of back-and-forth, it now looks like the FCC chairman is poised to have the commission vote to regulate broadband services like phone services, under Title II of the Communications Act. [More]
Google Says Net Neutrality Won’t Curb Expansion Of Google Fiber
By 1.29.15
Opponents of the net neutrality rules pending before the Federal Communications Commission claim that they would be an impediment to investment and slow the expansion and improvement of broadband networks around the country. But the folks at Google, who just added four new major markets for its Google Fiber service, aren’t terribly worried. [More]
Today In Terrible Arguments Against Net Neutrality: Monopoly Eras And Fees On Bills
By 1.21.15
It’s been a busy day for tech talk in Washington. Today, both the House and the Senate held hearings on net neutrality and a proposed bill to regulate it. A parade of former regulators, lobbyists, business representatives, lawyers, and consumer advocates sat on Capitol Hill and once again hashed through the debate, while elsewhere in the District, a current FCC commissioner was giving a lunchtime speech about why the FCC shouldn’t regulate at all. [More]
