591FCC’s Plan for Law on Net Neutrality Causes Unrest among ISPs
posted on October 8th, 2009
The governing body for American communications industry, the FCC, has received mixed responses from the industry on its proposals to bring the net neutrality rules under a legal framework.
The proposal aims at providing legal backing to the five new neutrality rules, introduced to protect users from the discretionary acts of service providers. The proposal seems to be a workable one, as it has the potential to stop ISPs from exercising undue influence on the content accessed by the users and the price of the same. However, as expected, the plan has been opposed by the ISPs themselves. The executive vice president of broadband for Comcast, David L. Cohen, has suggested that despite the ongoing debate on the issue, internet industry in the US has witnessed phenomenal growth. This is a clear indication that such legal framework is not required. He has also said that the rules might actually give rise to new problems instead of resolving old ones.
Dylan F. Tweney of Wired has suggested that the FCC rules may cause more inconvenience to the users by limiting their internet access. He elaborated by saying that the new laws might force service providers to opt for bandwidth caps instead of flat rate, which will be disadvantageous to the users.
Although such opposition is expected from different quarters, there is no reason to support the ISPs in the US, as they have a major control over the market unlike their UK counterparts. For information on UK ISP’s, click broadband comparison, for an insight into the broadband providers offers and performance.
