The FCC falsely claims in their Net Neutrality rules that the Internet will only continue to expand if they clamp down on broadband providers by restricting their decision-making ability

From the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, section II. Executive Summary, #11, it reads:

Three overarching objectives have guided us in answering these questions, based on the vast record before the Commission: America needs more broadband, better broadband, and open broadband networks. These goals are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive. Without an open Internet, there would be less broadband investment and deployment. And, as discussed further below, all three are furthered through the open Internet rules and balanced regulatory framework we adopt today.

Again, this is ridiculous.  The FCC is trying to claim that the only way for Internet access options and broadband performance to continue to improve is if they FORCE broadband carriers to cater to every whim of every content provider on the Internet and have no discriminatory powers over their own private networks whatsoever.

Take a retailer analogy.  Under the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, every retailer in the United States would be required to resale every product from every single supplier and would have no legal right or recourse to either charge more to specific suppliers or ban a supplier altogether.  That’s totally absurd.

It is BECAUSE retailers have the legal right to refuse certain suppliers or certain products that we have so many types of retailers today!! 

Imagine a Wal-Mart in Honolulu being approached by a manufacturer of snow shovels.  Under the FCC’s rules, that Wal-Mart would be required to stock those snow shovels on their shelves AND they would not be able to charge the snow shovel supplier a higher shelf rate than they charge other suppliers, nor would they be allowed to transfer those snow shovels to other Wal-Marts in colder zones where customers would actually buy snow shovels.

Wal-Mart would be required to stock those snow shovels…FOREVER.  Even if a single shovel was never sold, Wal-Mart would still be required to let those dusty snow shovels take up valuable shelf or floor space in their store.  Forever.

That is exactly what the FCC is trying to do with Net Neutrality.

Read the Net Neutrality rules yourself, downloaded from the FCC’s web site in three formats:  PDF | Word | Text

The FCC is using Net Neutrality to lock down the Internet under the guise of keeping it “open”

From section II. Executive Summary, #8, the FCC wrote:

Threats to Internet openness remain today. The record reflects that broadband providers hold all the tools necessary to deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor the content that they don't like. The 2010 rules helped to deter such conduct while they were in effect. But, as Verizon frankly told the court at oral argument, but for the 2010 rules, it would be exploring agreements to charge certain content providers for priority service. Indeed, the wireless industry had a well-established record of trying to keep applications within a carrier-controlled “walled garden” in the early days of mobile applications.

This is very dishonest and disingenuous by the FCC. Sure broadband providers hold all the tools necessary to “disfavor the content they don’t like”. As do cable providers, satellite companies…blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts, Reddits, Diggs, radio stations, TV stations, music halls, movie theaters, football stadiums, public libraries, churches, schools, even the town square.  EVERYONE who controls a venue has that kind of power at the fingertips.  And guess what: they all use it!  All of them!!  Even public schools, public libraries, town squares, sidewalks, streets, national parks, the U.S. Senate floor.  NONE of these places allow 100% unfettered access WITHIN THEIR VENUES to say or publish whatever content you want.  NONE of them!

And just like a coaxial cable line coming into your house, a broadband provides Internet access to you over their own private property, private network lines, private routers, switches, data centers, management hubs, employee labor, etc. They own these things.  THEY PAY FOR THEM.  So of course they should have the rights do decide what content flows through them!  And they turn around and charge you as their customer to use their services.  If you don’t like it, find another ISP.  There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.  Every single square inch of the United States is covered by 1 or more Internet Service Providers.  Everywhere.

For the FCC to say that a broadband provider shouldn’t have the rights to disallow certain types of content through their private property, that’s exactly the same as REQUIRING cable companies to carry every single channel in the entire world, regardless of whether they have a contract with that content provider or not AND regardless of the nature of the content.  So the FCC, using the rules akin to Net Neutrality, world force Time-Warner Cable to carry a Nazi-propaganda channel piped out of Austria right into your living room or an ISIS channel that depicts the daily beheadings of Syrian Christians.

But no!  The Internet will be slowly deteriorated by Net Neutrality as it seeks to quash the profits and legitimate business practices of Internet Service Providers.  As the number of ISPs dwindle over the next decade, your speed, reliability, and price of Internet access will suffer.  I promise you this.

Net Neutrality is bad for the Internet, bad for consumers, bad for Americans, bad for Internet Service Providers, bad for the economy, bad for our freedoms, and bad for the future of the United States.

 

Download the Net Neutrality regulations from the FCC and read them yourself:  PDF | Word | Text