Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You
That will no longer be true, Mr. Bell wrote, without net neutrality rules
that “ensure that anyone who puts something on the internet has a fair shot at finding a life-changing audience.”
The government-backed guarantee of equal access is why public interest groups, nongovernmental organizations, charities
and millions of private citizens wrote to the F. C.C.
C.C., AT&T called the Obama-era rules “an unprecedented regulatory overreach for which there is no economic or marketplace justification.”
rules mandated net neutrality principles under a utility-style telecommunications law, called Title 2, that dates to 1934.
Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University who is credited with coining the phrase “net
neutrality,” said the repeal plan not only rolls back the Obama-era rules, it goes further.
The major broadband and telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast have argued
that utility-style regulation represents unnecessary government meddling that will reduce their incentives to invest and improve service.
For you and me, the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to repeal net neutrality rules can be boiled down to two questions: What might happen?
But the broadband and telecom companies — and some economists — say
that the freedom to charge different prices for different products and services is vital to healthy markets.
