Reviews and Blog Posts: common carrier

What is Net Neutrality and Why Should Anyone Care?

No entry sign, courtesy of Elliot Brown on Flickr

On the 14th of this month, the US Court of Appeals for DC Circuit issued a ruling in a case brought by Verizon against the Federal Communications Commission. Verizon was challenging the FCC's attempt to "compel broadband providers to treat all Internet traffic the same regardless of source," as the ruling put it - what is popularly known as "net neutrality." Verizon won. Mostly.

Back in 2010, the FCC adopted the Open Internet Order - a set of rules designed to provide a basic framework for internet service providers (ISPs). It banned content blocking (where an ISP simply blocks subscriber's access to a specific site or type of data) and charging content providers for access to their network (think Comcast charging Netflix to provide its service to Comcast internet subscribers).

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