Court Overturns Net Neutrality Rule

The FCC can’t have it both ways.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the Obama administration’s net-neutrality rules.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission overstepped its authority by prohibiting Internet providers from blocking or discriminating against traffic to lawful websites.

By classifying Internet access as an “information service” as opposed to a “telecommunications service,” which is the classification used for traditional telephone companies, the FCC is not able to impose “anti-discrimination” and “anti-blocking” rules on Internet providers, the court said.

“Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such,” the judges wrote.

Under net neutrality rules, Netflix – for example – uses a huge percentage of the fiber, switches and routers and pays nothing for most of it. If the net is neutral, its traffic is the same as the Revo’s traffic… Only a billion times more bandwidth intensive. Somebody has to pay for that; nothing is free.

It ends up getting paid for by all Internet users including those who never use Netflix. The low, low monthly cost of Netflix that you enjoy is borne on the backs of people who never watch it or, maybe, even know it exists.

When net neutrality goes away, Netflix will be forced to pay for the amount of bandwidth it hogs. It will pass that cost on to its subscribers and they will end up paying for what they watch rather than having it subsidized by non-viewers… as it should be.

One way or another you were going to end up paying for bandwidth hogs like Netflix. It would either be through, 1) per-megabit pricing you pay your ISP or, 2) by higher subscription fees for streaming media. I prefer #2. Those who use the bandwidth, should pay for the bandwidth.