Service providers can intentionally impede Internet traffic—selling fast service to favored sites and slowing or blocking others. "Net neutrality" backers say that's wrong, citing free speech and commerce. Others call proposed rules a dangerous overreaction. Should the FCC step in?
Edited by Steve St. Angelo
Yes
By Andrew Jay Schwartzman
President and CEO, Media Access Project
To understand the debate over network neutrality on the Internet, it is useful to start with the adage "To not act is to act."
If the federal government does nothing—that is, if it does not adopt network neutrality rules—it will be allowing telephone and cable companies to block, degrade, or slow down any content on the Internet for any reason. Without such rules, the Internet will not live up to its full potential for fueling economic...
No
By Barbara Esbin
Senior fellow, Progress and Freedom Foundation
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed rules that would shift service and network management decision-making from Internet service providers to regulators in the name of "preserving the open Internet." Yet the FCC hasn't addressed what consumer harms it aims to remedy and whether the costs of imposing this remedy are exceeded by the benefits. Simply put, the case has not been...
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aj of OH 9:00AM March 25, 2011
Tom in San Diego of CA 6:49PM December 02, 2009
Reed of OH 1:33PM December 02, 2009