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SUPERHIGHWAY TRAFFIC JAM [In These Times](In These Times Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) blueprints Early this year, it seemed that all hope had been lost in the battle for net neutrality. In January, an appeals court threw out a major piece of the FCC's Internet regulations, which required broadband service providers to deliver all Internet content with equal speed. This decision alarmed proponents of a free and open Internet because it would allow Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, to charge websites more for faster connections. Larger, wealthier companies would have an easier time getting content to customers via "fast lanes," while smaller companies without the money to purchase bandwidth on the premium highway would be stuck in "slow lanes." An opportunity for public outcry came in May, when the FCC announced it was taking public comments on a draft plan that would permit ISPs to charge for faster content Advocacy groups and websites rallied Internet users everywhere to speak out about the plan, and a massive number of citizens showed regulators that they care about fairness and openness on the web. At the end of the comment period, on July 15, the FCC had received a record-breaking 780,000 comments. According to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation, less than 1 percent opposed net neutrality, while the rest were either in favor or had "no clear position on net neutrality, such as the full text of War and Peace." The FCC extended the comment period until September 15 and, even more spectacularly, received more than 3.7 million statements. The results of the second round of comments are yet to be released. In addition to flooding the FCC's website, advocates campaigned to raise public awareness. In an online protest on September 10 called "Internet Slowdown Day," thousands of heavy-traffic sites, including Netflix, Etsy, Vimeo, Reddit and Mozilla, banded together to give people a taste of how the Internet would behave if slow lanes existed. The sites featured spinning loading icons alongside their regular content to demonstrate what a future on a sub-par network would look like. The FCC has yet to make a decision, but it's clear they are weighing the voices of the people during their deliberations, says Craig Aaron, CEO and president of the communicationrights group Free Press. "It's a much different debate than January, or even May, because of the truly unprecedented public response." -AVIANA WILLIS (c) 2014 Institute for Public Affairs, Inc. |