FCC Votes Yet Another Study of Net Neutrality

yuna49 writes to let us know that the US Federal Communications Commission last week announced a Notice of Inquiry (PDF) into: "...the behavior of broadband market participants, including: (1) How broadband providers are managing Internet traffic on their networks today; (2) Whether providers charge different prices for different speeds or capacities of service; (3) Whether our policies should distinguish between content providers that charge end users for access to content and those that do not; (4) How consumers are affected by these practices." eWeek reports that the study is targeted at whether broadband providers are treating some content providers more favorably than others. Distinctly absent is any discussion about port filtering or other restrictions on Internet usage. The two Democrats on the Commission pressed for a broader "Notice of Rulemaking" to move more quickly towards a policy of non-discrimination. The Republican majority ignored these arguments and voted for an Inquiry, to which the Democrats acceded.

Comments

Re:Republican Majority

[heinousjay]

The FCC isn't Congress, it's part of the Executive branch.

Re:Along these lines...

[quanticle]

However, you notice that there is no mention made of *where* your traffic goes. The fact that you pay one flat rate to access Google, Slashdot, Youtube, and what have you is due to the FCC's Net Neutrality regulation. Without this regulation, your cable or telephone company would be within its rights to charge you different rates for different web sites. In essence, the Internet would become like cable TV, with websites being broken into various tiers, and you having to pay extra to access other tiers.

Example: if Comcast struck a deal with Yahoo, Yahoo would become the default search engine, and Google would be moved into a "premium" tier, meaning that I'd have to pay extra in order to access Google. I don't have to do this today because of Net Neutrality.