Net Neutrality Bill 38 Votes Short In Congress, and Time Has Almost Run Out (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Legislation to restore net neutrality rules now has 180 supporters in the U.S. House of Representatives, but that's 38 votes short of the amount needed before the end of the month. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, already approved by the Senate, would reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules. But 218 signatures from U.S. representatives (a majority) are needed to force a full vote in the House before Congress adjourns at the end of the year.

Net neutrality advocates previously said they needed 218 signatures by December 10 to force a vote. But an extension of Congress' session provided a little more time. "[Now that the Congressional session has officially been extended, members of Congress could be in town as late as December 21st," net neutrality advocacy group Fight for the Future wrote yesterday. "This means we have until the end of the year to get as many lawmakers as possible signed on to restore net neutrality." A discharge petition that would force a vote on the CRA resolution gained three new supports in the past two weeks, but even if all Democrats were on board it still wouldn't be enough to force a vote. Republicans have a 236-197 House majority, and only one House Republican has signed the petition.

Comments

Re:Both sides are bad... Oh wait..

[bit trollent]

The only real opposition for the war in Iraq came from Democrats, and very few outlier republicans.

Obama opposed it, as did most Democrats.

And it was the republicans in the Bush / Cheney that intentionally cooked up the intelligence on WMD that ensured the biggest war of the last generation was fought on a lie.

But again, you would have to be able to see the obvious and distinguish between vastly different actions from different parties.

Re:Still don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not at all what it's about. It's the concept that your ISP should be considered as a telecommunication utility rather than a content provider. As such, they should not be allowed to selectively throttle your connection based on what media you consumed, but rather treat all bits as equal. We're paying for the connection already, and the entities we're connecting to are paying for theirs -- nobody is trying to get anything for free.

They can still have data caps, but things like 0-rating to make their own content more desirable would also be illegal. Since most consumers only have 1 or 2 broadband choices, letting them take advantage of their natural monopolies does not lead to a competitive market.

The repeal has far-reaching implications, as with it providers are free to throttle their competitors or even block any content they want to discourage -- we have to take them at the word for it that they won't. And we've actually seen them throttle competitors before, which is the entire reason NN was enacted in the first place.

Re:Still don't get it

[Actually, I do RTFA]

What you described has nothing to do with net neutrality. NN is what keeps Microsoft from paying Comcast so that Bing loads faster than Google. It's horrible for start ups, as it puts a giant cost in the way of using their service. Plus, who wants Comcast deciding which sites they get to use at regular speeds, and which get arbitrarily slowed down.

More correction needed

[hyades1]

It looks like the recent kick in the teeth Republicans got at the polls wasn't enough to educate them about what happens when Americans get annoyed with their government. Perhaps in a couple of years another electoral kick, this time straight to the balls, will get through to them.