Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

April 21, 2020 03:23 pm

Telecom's Latest Dumb Claim: The Internet Only Works During A Pandemic Because We Killed Net Neutrality

Karl Bode, reporting for TechDirt: A few weeks ago, a new talking point popped up among telecom policy pundits opposed to net neutrality. They began claiming that the only reason the internet hasn't buckled during the pandemic was thanks to the FCC's controversial and unpopular net neutrality repeal. That repeal, you'll recall, not only killed net neutrality, but much of the FCC's ability to hold ISPs accountable for pretty much anything, including outright billing fraud. But to hear various net neutrality opponents tell it, the repeal is the primary reason the US internet hasn't fallen apart during COVID-19 quarantine: "We should thank our lucky stars that Title II net neutrality regulations were repealed by the FCC in 2017. In doing so, the US avoided the fate of much of Europe today, where broadband networks are strained and suffering from a lack of investment and innovation." Except none of this is true. This entire narrative is fantasy -- built almost entirely off of the EU simply asking various high bandwidth providers to throttle certain services in an abundance of caution. There remains no evidence that this was due to any actual congestion, and, at the same time, there's been no evidence that US networks have held up better than those elsewhere (indeed, many of the companies that throttled services in the EU did so in the US as well). Investment at many US ISPs actually dropped post net neutrality repeal. And there's literally no indication that US networks are somehow "more robust" than the EU because the FCC decided to ignore the public and obliterate its own authority at the behest of the telecom lobby. It's just not a supportable claim.

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot