Tag Archives: Free Press

House Democrats tell Ajit Pai: Stop screwing over the public

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On Thursday this week, the Communications Subcommittee will hold a hearing about the impact of Pai’s net neutrality repeal on consumers, small businesses, and free speech. Witnesses who have been invited to testify at the hearing include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, cable industry chief lobbyist Michael Powell (who is also a former FCC chairman), and representatives of Mozilla, Free Press, and Eastern Oregon Telecom. – Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica » http://bit.ly/2HZDcQ6

Legally Dubious Hybrid Proposals Won’t Protect Internet Users

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“The good news is that the FCC seems to have abandoned the disastrous proposal it put out in May. But if its new rules look anything like the convoluted proposals submitted by Mozilla and CDT, then they’re still the wrong choice. The FCC is supposed to protect our communications, period. Chairman Wheeler can’t wave a wand, change the law, and pretend to break the Internet in two. But these schemes suggest just that: dividing the Internet to protect corporations sending information, but not the people receiving it. Such an untested, too-clever-by-half approach is bad law and a bad idea. It will not survive in court, and it is clearly inferior to reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. – Craig Aaron,Free Press
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Net Blocking: A Problem in Need of a Solution

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The principle that protects free speech and innovation online is irrelevant, they claim, as blocking has never, ever happened. And if it did, they add, market forces would compel Internet service providers to correct course and re-open their networks. In reality, many providers both in the U.S. and abroad have violated the principles of Net Neutrality — and they plan to continue doing so in the future. […] In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. […] In 2005, the nation’s largest Internet provider, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. […] From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. […] In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hotspots. – Timothy Karr,Free Press
(Full Story: http://ift.tt/1z3Z0K0 )

President’s Net Neutrality Views Don’t Square with FCC Proposal

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“One of the issues around Net Neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers. That’s the big controversy here,” Obama said in response to a journalist’s question at the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit in Washington. “You have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more and also charge more for spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster. I personally, the position of my administration, as well as a lot of the companies here, is that you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users. You want to leave it open so the next Google and the next Facebook can succeed.” – Timothy Karr,Free Press