Net neutrality passed, now what?
With the passing of Net Neutrality internet service providers, it seems, will get moved into the Common Carrier classification. One of the effects of this means they cannot accept money from a business to make another business run slowly, nor can they offer a company a fast lane to their customers.
Verizon decided that if you’re not with them against net neutrality, you’re living in a different bygone age, so they posted a rebuttal in Morse Code to let you know why this is the end of the world, calling today Throwback Thursday. They include a link if you’re in the 21st century to read a PDF that appears to have been created on a 1950’s typewriter. Neither the 50’s typeface nor the PDF (released in 1993) really feel particularly 21st century to me, so I’m a bit off as to what they’re attempting to go for here.
With the basis that every bit on the internet is as important as every other bit, and how ticked off the ISPs are (this will prevent them from making a lot of money from both ends of the internet), we can expect immediate challenges to the law.
On the other end of this, with government classification and oversight comes increased taxes. Or not. At the moment it looks like the internet is still more or less free from taxes, although fees are a different thing entirely and could be tacked on by various states later on.
The new rules don’t go into effect for a few months, and a challenge could still derail the thing or put it off until an administration much more favorable to Big ISP is in place. If the law does go into effect, we shouldn’t be seeing things again like AT&T blocking video chat, Comcast and Verizon throttling Netflix / charging them for bandwidth, multiple ISPs blocking VoIP, or blocking apps that might compete with the ISPs.
But at the end of the day today, nothing really will have changed. That won’t happen for a few months, at least. If you’re for net neutrality, the fight isn’t over; if you’re against it, you’ve still got a chance.
[Android Police]
