The net neutrality court decision, in plain English

RV_ · June 16, 2016

A big win for all but the Cable companies. The Internet and its providers will be treated like any other utility.

Excerpt:

"You may have heard something Tuesday about a court and net neutrality and something about the Internet. Maybe it didn't make much sense. And that's a good thing! If we all spent our time trying to decipher the Web, we'd never get around to actually using it, or creating awesome new things with it.

That said, some debates are so important to the healthy function of the Internet that they're worth learning about in depth, and in the process grasping their implications for free speech, online commerce, educational opportunity and all the reasons that make the Internet worth using in the first place.

One of those debates reached a key turning point Tuesday, when a federal appeals court said that the Internet is basically like a giant telephone network and that the companies that provide it, such as Comcast and Verizon, must offer essentially the same protections to Internet users that the government has required of phone companies for decades.

Okay, that description glosses over some details that we'll try to explain below, but the big thing here is that this court ruling represents one of the most important moments in the history of the Internet. It reflects a change in understanding that, if upheld, will now shape everything ranging from how Internet service providers (ISPs) upgrade their networks to what apps you can find on the Web. The weirdest thing is, you'll probably never even notice.

What's this court decision all about?

In a 2-1 decision, the Federal Communications Commission won a sweeping victory against a number of suing Internet providers. The FCC was accused of writing a set of strict rules for Internet providers that went far beyond what it was allowed to do under its congressional mandate. And by filing a lawsuit, cable and telecom companies hoped to get those rules thrown out.

But instead the companies lost?

Yes, pretty much across the board, surprising almost everyone on both sides of the issue.

The conventional wisdom in Washington was that the court would agree to let some of the rules slide, but not all. Analysts predicted that the three judges in the case — David Tatel, Sri Srinivasan and Stephen Williams — would throw out an attempt by the FCC to apply its rules to cellphone data as well as regular, fixed home broadband. But in the end, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted even those provisions.

There is much more in the full article which also covers:

Remind me again what these rules are for and what they look like?

How did the industry try to attack the rules? And what did the court say in response?

You said many people thought the rules for wireless carriers were going to be thrown out. What happened?

What happened to the First Amendment argument?

What does all this mean? And what happens next?"

The article with active links and much more is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/15/the-net-neutrality-court-decision-in-plain-english/?wpisrc=nl_tech&wpmm=1

For further reading:

Net neutrality takes effect today. Here’s how it affects you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/12/net-neutrality-takes-effect-today-heres-how-it-affects-you/?tid=a_inl

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