Article from The Daily Caller by Eric Lieberman.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed Obama-era internet regulations Thursday in a 3-2 vote, signaling a culmination to a long-winded and highly heated debate.

Net neutrality — an amorphous concept generally meaning all internet traffic should be treated equally — has been fiercely contested in recent years, increasing in intensity over recent months. Specifically, the best way to enforce net neutrality, or ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) don’t partake in unfair practices, is the crux of the policy dispute.

Proponents of the net neutrality rules imposed by former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler argue that placing the government at the center of the internet is needed to ensure wireless carriers like Comcast and Verizon don’t triage consumers by offering different services with varying speeds, also known as fast lanes. They further contend that the regulations are integral to preventing content owners (think Netflix and Hulu) from paying broadband providers to “cut to the front of the line” at congested nodes of internet traffic, also known as “paid prioritization.” Such corporations could also conceivably favor their own content over that of others in what sometimes is called “vertical prioritization.”

Say, for example, Comcast wanted to encourage its customers to use its On Demand platform for entertainment viewing purposes, it may slow Netflix’s streaming capabilities. Thus far, there has been minimal evidence of ISPs engaging in throttling or paid prioritization. Yet, advocates of the rules argue that it will likely occur prevalently, especially as the internet ecosystem becomes even more complex.

Read the entire article at The Daily Caller.

Image Credit: By Michael Vadon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons