Benjamin Blackburn & Vincenzo André
The Bobcat Banner
Grand Blanc HS
1st Place
Division 1, News Writing
Pro/Con Editorial Columns
What is net neutrality?
According to a poll conducted on the Bobcat Banner twitter, 32% of GBHS students that were polled are unsure about what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is a federal mandate that requires ISPs, Internet Service Providers, to conduct themselves in a specific manner due to the fact that the Internet has been deemed as a public utility. Some of the prominet and important regulations that ISPs must adhear to are no blocking, which is the restricing of any legal website or device that can assess the web; no throttling, which is the intential slowing down or reduction of quality of any legal website; no paid prioritization; which is the intentional speeding up or improvement of quality of any website that has paid an ISP for such a privalage; the Internet conduct rule, which states that any person with access to the internet has the right to view any legal site and create any legal site; and to mantain trancparency, which means ISPs must keep their customers aware of what they are being chargered and what they are reciving.
For
By: Vincenzo Andre, Staff Writer
The average day of most Americans includes some
form of interaction with the internet. The internet is used
as a means of communication, a source of information, and
even place of entertainment. Regardless of how the internet
is used most Americans do use it. According to Pew Research
Center, “73% of Americans go online on a daily basis,
21% go online almost constantly, and 42% go online several
times a day.” It is for these reasons that the Internet was
initially classified as a public utility, and it is for these same
reasons why it should remain as such.
Now the issue of Net Neutrality arises. Firstly, Net
Neutrality is, as the name would suggest, equal access to
the internet. Basically the way Net Neutrality works is that
if someone pays to have access to the internet, they have
complete and equal access to all legal parts of the internet.
Now most people would argue that equality is a good thing,
so then why is Net Neutrality considered controversial?
As of Dec. 14, 2017, the FCC (Federal Communications
Commission) will have voted whether or not to keep
equality as a part of the internet. What this means is that
if Net Neutrality is removed, internet service providers
would no longer be required to provide their customers
with full access to the internet. If they choose ISPs could
slow down internet speeds on certain websites, handicap
certain aspects of other websites, or just completely block
any site of their choice. Of course if their customers want
the full internet they can have it back by simply paying an
extra fee each month, for the exact same the thing they had
before.That’s what’s so important about Net Neutrality, it
affects everyone who uses the internet; which according
to the previously statute statistics, is the vast majority of
Americans. It is for these reasons that of the GBHS students
polled only 9% thought Net Neutrality should be removed.
The controversy over Net Neutrality isn’t one of
governmental power, but an argument over the rights of
citizens versus the profit of corporations.
Against
By: Benjamin Blackburn, Opinion Editor
In an attempt to create a “open and free internet”
the Federal Communications Commission under President
Obama subjected the internet to Title II of the 1934 Communications
Act which deemed the internet a public utility.
These Obama era regulations eliminate competition and give the federal government full power to regulate ISPs and tell them how to run their business.
According to Sandvine in 2015 Netflix took up
36.5% of all downstream internet bandwidth at peak hours
and YouTube took up 15.6%. This heavy usage of data costs
ISPs a lot of money and net neutrality says that they are not
allowed to charge extra for these services. Someone who
uses Netflix once or twice a year should not be subsidizing
people who binge seasons of TV on a weekly basis.
Proponents of net neutrality say it is needed to protect
against big corporations such as Comcast and AT&T
from slowing down or charging more for internet in a biased
manner. This argument only has merit if one ISP has
a monopoly on the market. If Comcast were to slow down
Netflix in favor of Hulu, a big portion of Comcast’s consumers
would drop Comcast and go join an ISP that isn’t slowing
down services that they subscribe to. When Netflix and
Youtube take up half of all internet traffic there is a high
demand for these services, and it would be detrimental
and go against the best interest of big ISPs to slow access to
these sites.
Supporters of net neutrality say that a large portion
of America only has one option when it comes to ISPs. The
reason there are monopolies in smaller areas of America
is because local governments in those areas are blocking
smaller ISPs from providing competition in those areas. Before
an ISP has the ability to provide service they have to
get permission from local governments to even start laying
down wires to provide service to smaller communities. The
reason that there are so many monopolies is because smaller
ISPs don’t have the financial ability to jump through the
plethora of regulations to compete with these bigger ISPs.