Looking at the FCC regulations and looking for solutions

1. End to Net Neutrality?
Paying more for speed

2. What is the FCC proposing?
• The FCC wants to create new standards for
Internet providers
• This will allow providers to develop a “fast lane”
and a “slow lane”, depending on the content that it
is putting out there
• This means that Internet Providers (like AT & T)
can charge web companies (like Netflix) more to
stream their content (important for video
streaming)

3. Internet slow lane
• This would create an Internet slow lane,
which means that what you pay for Internet
may not give you equal access to everything
on the Internet.
• Your Internet provider can determine what
services you get quickly, and what services
you get slower. AND, they get to charge
the sites (like Netflix) for quicker access.

4. Well, isn’t that like HBO?
• NO! With HBO, you are paying for content.
Your payments go to HBO.
• With the new proposal, more money is being
extracted but is not going to those who create the
content, but is going back to the Internet
Providers.
• So you are paying for the service (like AT&T
broadband) and then the service decides how it
will deliver content (even slowing down
something you have already paid for like Netflix).

5. Is this fair?
• Many people think that this is not fair,
which is why there are so many protests.
• Cable companies want to collect more
money from people creating content to
provide services for people paying for
Internet.
• As customers, we are “stuck” with our
providers.

6. Possible worst case scenario
• This pits business against business. So maybe
Netflix is willing to pay extra for the fast lane for
their video, but Amazon doesn’t want to. So when
you watch video from Netflix, it is fast, but
Amazon keeps stalling. Both provided by your
carrier (like Verizon or Time Warner).
• Which business would you purchase an online
video from???

7. Solutions???
• There are two solutions: competition and
regulatory.
• Competition: You decide who you
purchase bandwidth from. If they are
charging companies extra for the fast lane,
you switch to another company.
• Regulatory: Similar to what happened to
the telephone company.

8. A possible bright spot
• Right now, the companies that supply Internet (Cox,
Verizon, AT&T) are known as Internet Service Providers.
• The FCC is suggesting we reclassify them as Title II,
“common carriers”. This would put them under the same
regulation as phone companies.
• This would require Internet Service Providers to treat all
traffic on their networks equally (like the phone
companies)
• Although this is a great idea, it has many political
obstacles.

9. What if the 2 tier service wins?
• This can impact our country’s future as net
innovators.
• Companies with net neutrality would have
an easier way of expanding.
• But, we may see an increase in competition,
which is not as desirable as regulatory
changes, but better than nothing!

10. What the White House says
• The White House supports net neutrality
• However, it states that the FCC is an
independent agency so it will review the
proposal

11. What the FCC is saying
• It says that these rules are not threatening
the Internet, free speech or capitalism
• It is also welcoming public debate, and has
given us 120 days to put in our two cents.

12. What a web browser is saying
• Mozilla Firefox, a browser, is saying that
reclassifying the Internet Service Providers
to Title II will create “real net-neutrality”.

13. What Netflix is saying
• It isn’t fair to consumers to pay $50 to $80 a
month for high speed Internet, only to have the
ISP “discriminate” on what content gets to be
faster.
• They say that the proposed regulations could
“legalize discrimination, harming innovation and
punishing U.S. consumers with a broadband
experience that is worse than they already have”.

14. How about others?
• Small companies say that they can’t afford
to pay more for fast streaming (think of
those upstart video companies)
• Conservatives don’t like the additional
regulation over the Internet
• Open Internet advocates are outraged!

15. What you may see if this passes

16. Opposing views on one page