o the Internet. Tim Berners Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, wrote in Keeping the Internet Competitive that when the trucking industry was deregulated it worked because everyone had access to the roadways and could go wherever they needed to go without restrictions. Competition on the Internet works because everyone has equal access to it and can go where they need to go without restrictions. Title II is the strongest legal foundation to protect equal access.
Every conversation with Pai neighbors was positive. No one in the community criticized the protest. Neighbors of Pai oppose what he is doing. Photo by Eleanor Goldfield.
- "Start-ups for Net Neutrality" is 1,000-member group of start-up businesses that have written to Commissioner Pai urging him to keep net neutrality and Title II. They see it as essential for allowing new businesses to compete, to be able to put out their product or service and get a niche in the economy and be able to challenge existing businesses. In their letter to Pai they write, after applauding efforts to create a faster Internet, that:
We also depend on an open Internet--including enforceable net neutrality rules that ensure big cable companies can't discriminate against people like us. We're deeply concerned with your intention to undo the existing legal framework.
Without net neutrality, the incumbents who provide access to the Internet would be able to pick winners or losers in the market. They could impede traffic from our services in order to favor their own services or established competitors. Or they could impose new tolls on us, inhibiting consumer choice. Those actions directly impede an entrepreneur's ability to "start a business, immediately reach a worldwide customer base, and disrupt an entire industry." Our companies should be able to compete with incumbents on the quality of our products and services, not our capacity to pay tolls to Internet access providers.
- The same is true for media. Pai is also allowing big mergers so the already concentrated corporate media is getting more concentrated. Upcoming is a merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which includes CNN and HBO. If Comcast -- who owns NBC/MSBC is legally allowed to regulate access to the Internet by content, what will this mean for alternative, independent and non-profit media -- or to social media -- that challenges the narrative of the corporate mass media? They can throttle other views and without net neutrality it will be legal. Think of the Internet as a mall where the owners allow you in but puts the stores they own closer to the entrance and places obstacles in the way of getting to their competitors. That would be the opposite of a competitive market. It would be a closed market controlled by a corporation.The same is true for entrepreneurs and small business. They need an open Internet accessible equally to all in order to compete, innovate and succeed. No person or business should be paying tolls for better Internet service.
- In the future ISP's that own MSNBC , CNN and other media will have the power not to allow competitive news sources or advocacy news sources to stream live on their broadband networks. If the ISP's have the choice to shut down independent news sources that compete with them for viewers, they will. That is what is coming. The Internet will be more of a tool for big media (and government) propaganda and shut down the vibrant free speech that a wider media is allowing to occur.
Unfortunately, because the telecoms choose not to compete with each other, most people do not have a choice of provider. They are in Comcast, Verizon or AT&T territory so they have nowhere else to go. That is why they get away with overpriced access, lousy service and slow Internet speeds compared to the rest of the world. It is also why they are among the most unpopular corporations in the country. Monopolies do not need to create faster Internet like the rest of the developed world has, and they will not need to be content neutral or allow equal access to all if Title II net neutrality rules are repealed. Don't let that happen. Act now to protect our Internet.
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