Ft. Collins Becomes a Model for Net Neutrality

The city of Ft. Collins, Colo., has decided to become an Internet service provider and make available to its citizens broadband as a utility, building out its own infrastructure (thanks for the tip, SM). The city council says it "is committed to the principles of Net Neutrality," adding, "The City Broadband Plan does not call for any restrictions on access including uploads, downloads, delivery methods or providers (email, Skype, Netflix, etc.)."

Take that, Trump administration!

Nearly 60 percent of Ft. Collins voters approved this plan two months ago, and the city council voted this week 7-0 to move forward on providing high-speed internet to all citizens as a public utility at a modest monthly cost. Big internet providers like Comcast and Centurylink spent millions trying to dissuade voters away from net neutrality, but they failed.

Just as Trump's FCC is failing to persuade the vast majority of internet users that dumping net neutrality is a good thing.

Lesson for North Carolina
One of the first noxious things the Republicans did in North Carolina after they took over the General Assembly in 2011 was pass a prohibition against NC municipalities' doing what Ft. Collins is doing. The law taking away the power of cities and towns to commission their own broadband networks passed both the House and Senate early in 2011 and went to Gov. Bev Perdue, who thought it was a very bad idea but who also let the atrocity become law without vetoing it (perhaps because she knew her veto would be overridden?).

Actually, the Colorado legislature passed a similar prohibition against towns and cities, but Ft. Collins and dozens of other Colorado towns are opting to override the prohibition. There's no such opt-out allowed for towns in North Carolina, but there definitely needs to be a united front in opposition to the law. In 2018 we can replace Rep. Jonathan Jordan and Sen. Deanna Ballard, or any other member of the General Assembly who thinks it's cool to grant internet monopolies to corporations that gouge their customers and provide sucky service.

The Man Who Murdered the Internet Yesterday Thinks He's Funny

Ajit Pai, Chair of the FCC, mocking
critics of his decision to kill net neutrality

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Ajit Pai led his fellow Republican commissioners in a vote yesterday to kill net neutrality regulations. The three Republicans over-ruled the two Democratic commission members.

Now that they've killed it, perhaps you'd like to know what's been lost (and can be resurrected by Congress but probably won't be because Congress is controlled by the same corporations that control Ajit Pai).

What Is Net Neutrality?
Noun: The principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.

Your ISP, under regulations killed yesterday by Mr. Pai, previously could not, for example, decide to slow down the streaming of a Netflix movie because they want more money from Netflix for the service. Now your ISP can do anything it wants, because it's about to be the Wild West in streaming services and other Internet products.

After Ajit Pai's action yesterday, your ISP can decide to charge you more for certain services, like access to Facebook or Google or Amazon. An ISP can decide to create tiers of service, so that your lowest-cost, most basic access might give you Fox News and Breitbart but little else. For a higher tier of service, like for the New York Times and the Washington Post and HuffPost, you would have to pay much more. Instead of a flat service rate, you can expect accelerating fees. Otherwise, why would Verizon and Charter and other ISPs be so ecstatic about their boy, Ajit Pai?

Who Is Ajit Pai
He's a free marketeer lawyer who Trump appointed to head the FCC and who used to work for -- who else? -- Verizon. As a free market true believer, he wants to unleash the big boys to make all the profit the market will bear. Sure, some "little people" will get hurt, but that's the price you pay for freedom!

Can This Be Stopped?
It will take weeks for the repeal to go into effect, so we consumers won't see changes right away. But the political and legal fight started immediately. 

Numerous Democrats on Capitol Hill called for a bill that would reestablish the rules that Ajit Pai just killed, but do we expect a Republican-dominated Congress to go against the big telecoms? Not bloody likely, even though plenty of Republicans have given lip service to net neutrality.

Several Democratic state attorneys general, including Eric T. Schneiderman of New York, said they would file a suit to stop the change. Several public interest groups including Public Knowledge and the National Hispanic Media Coalition also promised to file a suit. The Internet Association, the trade group that represents big tech firms such as Google and Facebook, said it also was considering legal action.

In the meantime, you should be asking Virginia Foxx where she stands on net neutrality.

Don't Look to Senator Tillis If You Want 'Net Neutrality'

Senator Dung-Hands Von Fecal-Fingers led the NC House in 2011 when the General Assembly passed a law saying that a North Carolina city could not offer broadband to its citizens below cost. He did that because he loves freedom so much.

He especially loves freedom for AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon, and they have returned the compliment with $$$.

The city of Wilson, NC, appealed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to lift the restriction, which the FCC did yesterday.

The Senator promptly had a hissy fit ... because, you know, he loves freedom too too too much. He promised to introduce a bill in the U.S. Congress to prohibit the FCC from overriding state freedom laws broadband restrictions.

Net Neutrality Is at Stake

Today the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a new draft "order" (that has not been made fully public) about which all of us should be concerned. The two Republican members of the FCC say they'll vote against the new order, which according to in-the-know commentators will for the first time set up "online discrimination" aimed at privileging certain big corps like AT&T. I believe those Republican commissioners are correct in their votes. The Democratic commissioners, including Obama's appointed chair, appear to be wrong. Very wrong. (The technicalities are complicated, so you'd better be fully awake and focused before you start boning up on the issue.)

What is Net Neutrality? If you don't already know, the concept advocates for no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication.

We view with alarm anything that threatens that principle. The new order proposed by the FCC chair appears to do that very thing.

In Congress, only Sen. Al Franken has been outspoken on the issue, and you might want to take a look at the warning he sends.

Because the basis for this threat appears to be another sell-out by President Obama, it is all the more credible.

UPDATE
The FCC passed its new "order" by a 3-2 vote (here's an assessment, for what it's worth), but this sentence leaps out at us:

The commission's order is rumored to be 90 pages or so long, but there's no public copy available as of yet.

Proposed in secrecy and passed in secrecy and now discussed in secrecy. Doesn't seem kosher.

Bears watching.