Having worked in the telecommunications industry for over 30 years, I am concerned about the current efforts underway to destroy the Title II common carrier provisions protecting internet users from the schemes of the various Internet Service Providers that would prefer to give “fast lane” advantages to their own and their allied services, therefore discriminating against or even completely denying the services and sites offered by their competitors, or even those web sites with differing views and opinions.
Network neutrality is how the government protects people on the internet by forcing all traffic to be treated fairly and in an even-handed manner, without censorship, discrimination or charge differential so that all users can get their chosen content regardless of what web sites they access, or what platforms they use to access the web.
Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and other ISPs have repeatedly demonstrated an anti-consumer desire to throttle some internet traffic and to impose extra costs on users and their preferred content or access methods. The Title II common carrier regulation of these carriers is the only thing that keeps the internet available to all users at fair prices and without censorship imposed by the carriers. These provenly nefarious ISPs have shown again and again that they cannot be trusted without this regulation in place. They would prefer to downgrade the internet into a channelized system with advantages going to advertisers instead of to users, much like the dreadful service provided on cable TV with tiered services at high and unfair prices that are harmful to consumers.
The ISPs will censor and destroy the free access we are accustomed to unless we demand that Title II common carrier Net Neutrality regulation remains the law of the land. This is not a partisan issue at all; the carriers have shown bad faith to users and content all across the political spectrum, and demonstrated that they must be regulated as the common carriers they are.
William “Bill” Arnold,
Juneau
