Blog: net neutrality

Unless you have been hiding under a rock this last couple of weeks you’ll have heard at least something about the build up to the decision over turning net neutrality in the US, a decision that was confirmed yesterday.

Anticipated for months, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted yesterday to repeal the Obama-era ‘Open Internet Order’ enacted in 2015. Despite public outcry across social media over the anti-competitive nature of the decision, the regulatory agency led by Ajit Pai has enacted a decision so far reaching – effectively weaponising content distribution, it will affect how millions access the internet and have significant consequences for the digital economy.

On December 14th the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on whether or not to end the regulation around net neutrality. New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai believes that net neutrality issues are no longer needed, because the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can protect consumers from broadband providers.

The existential question of the digital era is net neutrality. Since the utopian days of 1989 when World Wide Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee first connected his colleagues via computers at CERN in Switzerland, the emerging interconnected world of academics and entrepreneurs has been engaged in an ongoing battle of the underlying principles of the infrastructure underpinning the internet.