Benjamin Blackburn & Vincenzo Andr\u00e9
\nThe Bobcat Banner
\nGrand Blanc HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 1, News Writing
\nPro\/Con Editorial Columns<\/p>\n
What is net neutrality?
\nAccording 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.<\/p>\n
The average day of most Americans includes some
\nform of interaction with the internet. The internet is used
\nas a means of communication, a source of information, and
\neven place of entertainment. Regardless of how the internet
\nis used most Americans do use it. According to Pew Research
\nCenter, \u201c73% of Americans go online on a daily basis,
\n21% go online almost constantly, and 42% go online several
\ntimes a day.\u201d It is for these reasons that the Internet was
\ninitially classified as a public utility, and it is for these same
\nreasons why it should remain as such.
\nNow the issue of Net Neutrality arises. Firstly, Net
\nNeutrality is, as the name would suggest, equal access to
\nthe internet. Basically the way Net Neutrality works is that
\nif someone pays to have access to the internet, they have
\ncomplete and equal access to all legal parts of the internet.
\nNow most people would argue that equality is a good thing,
\nso then why is Net Neutrality considered controversial?
\nAs of Dec. 14, 2017, the FCC (Federal Communications
\nCommission) will have voted whether or not to keep
\nequality as a part of the internet. What this means is that
\nif Net Neutrality is removed, internet service providers
\nwould no longer be required to provide their customers
\nwith full access to the internet. If they choose ISPs could
\nslow down internet speeds on certain websites, handicap
\ncertain aspects of other websites, or just completely block
\nany site of their choice. Of course if their customers want
\nthe full internet they can have it back by simply paying an
\nextra fee each month, for the exact same the thing they had
\nbefore.That\u2019s what\u2019s so important about Net Neutrality, it
\naffects everyone who uses the internet; which according
\nto the previously statute statistics, is the vast majority of
\nAmericans. It is for these reasons that of the GBHS students
\npolled only 9% thought Net Neutrality should be removed.
\nThe controversy over Net Neutrality isn\u2019t one of
\ngovernmental power, but an argument over the rights of
\ncitizens versus the profit of corporations.<\/p>\n
In an attempt to create a \u201copen and free internet\u201d
\nthe Federal Communications Commission under President
\nObama subjected the internet to Title II of the 1934 Communications
\nAct which deemed the internet a public utility.
\nThese Obama era regulations eliminate competition and give the federal government full power to regulate ISPs and tell them how to run their business.
\nAccording to Sandvine in 2015 Netflix took up
\n36.5% of all downstream internet bandwidth at peak hours
\nand YouTube took up 15.6%. This heavy usage of data costs
\nISPs a lot of money and net neutrality says that they are not
\nallowed to charge extra for these services. Someone who
\nuses Netflix once or twice a year should not be subsidizing
\npeople who binge seasons of TV on a weekly basis.
\nProponents of net neutrality say it is needed to protect
\nagainst big corporations such as Comcast and AT&T
\nfrom slowing down or charging more for internet in a biased
\nmanner. This argument only has merit if one ISP has
\na monopoly on the market. If Comcast were to slow down
\nNetflix in favor of Hulu, a big portion of Comcast\u2019s consumers
\nwould drop Comcast and go join an ISP that isn\u2019t slowing
\ndown services that they subscribe to. When Netflix and
\nYoutube take up half of all internet traffic there is a high
\ndemand for these services, and it would be detrimental
\nand go against the best interest of big ISPs to slow access to
\nthese sites.
\nSupporters of net neutrality say that a large portion
\nof America only has one option when it comes to ISPs. The
\nreason there are monopolies in smaller areas of America
\nis because local governments in those areas are blocking
\nsmaller ISPs from providing competition in those areas. Before
\nan ISP has the ability to provide service they have to
\nget permission from local governments to even start laying
\ndown wires to provide service to smaller communities. The
\nreason that there are so many monopolies is because smaller
\nISPs don\u2019t have the financial ability to jump through the
\nplethora of regulations to compete with these bigger ISPs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Benjamin Blackburn & Vincenzo Andr\u00e9 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,58],"tags":[151,20],"class_list":["post-3413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nw","category-proconeditorialcolumns","tag-2017-18","tag-division1","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kasey Garvelink","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=8"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-T3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}