| Itarillė |
| quote: | A slew of House Democrats have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission warning the agency not to go forward with its plan to partially reclassify ISPs as common carriers, a move needed to impose net neutrality rules.
"The uncertainty this proposal creates will jeopardize jobs and deter needed investment for years to come," wrote Texas Congressman Gene Green on Monday. "The significant regulatory impact of reclassifying broadband service is not something that should be taken lightly and should not be done without additional direction from Congress."
Plus, the "controversy surrounding that approach" could "serve as a distraction from what should be our Nation's foremost communications priority: bringing broadband to every corner of America, getting every American online," the letter continues. It's co-signed by 73 Democrats.
The FCC has been looking for a revised means to set up Internet non-discrimination rules ever since a Federal court shot down its Order against Comcast for P2P throttling. But at the same time that Green and his backers sent the FCC their letter, Capitol Hill's top Democrats, far more sympathetic to the FCC's plans, announced that they want to get that "additional direction from Congress" thing going via hearings to revise the Communications Act.
"In the long term, if there is a need to rewrite the law to provide consumers, the Commission, and industry with a new framework for telecommunications policy, we are committed as Committee Chairmen to doing so," wrote Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) earlier this month.
The Green letter seemed heaven-sent by the anti-net neutrality group Americans for Prosperity, host of the website NoInternetTakeover.com. And it was roundly condemned by the pro-net neutrality group Free Press, which unsparingly dissects the document on its SavetheInternet site.
The statement "is so full of misinformation that no member of Congress should in good conscience put his or her name on it," Save the Internet insists. Nevertheless, many didand they are members of FCC Chair Julius Genachowski's own party. |
Source: http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news...=1#comments-bar
Being still a novice in understanding the ins and outs of politics and how its involvement is relevant in many cases, any input (or flamings) would be great. Why would a politician be anti net neutrality? Is it about bandwidth allotments? Is it a national security issue? Is it something that could threaten the possibility of not having more money being put into their (politicians) pockets?
If the U.S is the country that pretty much developed and gave life to the internet, one would think that it could develop into something more advanced and expansive. Yet in reality, it's countries outside of the U.S that has better access points and speeds! It just doesn't make sense as to why we can't ride that "wave" of development as time goes on.
So this is why I'm asking those questions, enlighten me as to why politicians would prefer to keep bandwidth traffic controlled and continue to let ISPs charge us an arm and a leg, maybe a spleen even, for speeds that are less than par with the rest of the world? Is there something about this case that I'm missing that will explain why this issue is at this point right now? |
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