back to article For one night only: Net neutrality punch-up between Big Cable, Big Web this September

The American spectator sport that is net neutrality has just got its own Rumble in the Jungle. On September 7, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing titled "Ground rules for the Internet eco-system," its chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) announced during a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday morning, and it is …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Blech!

    What a birthday present. I think I'll pass and go straight to the drinking.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    if you want to help protect NN you can support groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU and Free Press who are fighting to keep Net Neutrality.

    https://www.eff.org/

    https://www.aclu.org/

    https://www.freepress.net/

    https://www.fightforthefuture.org/

    https://www.publicknowledge.org/

    https://demandprogress.org/

    also you can set them as your charity on https://smile.amazon.com/

    also write to your House Representative and senators http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

    https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state

    and the FCC

    https://www.fcc.gov/about/contact

    You can now add a comment to the repeal here

    https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108&sort=date_disseminated,DESC

    here a easier URL you can use thanks to John Oliver

    www.gofccyourself.com

    you can also use this that help you contact your house and congressional reps, its easy to use and cuts down on the transaction costs with writing a letter to your reps.

    https://resistbot.io/

    also check out

    https://democracy.io/#!/

    which was made by the EFF and is a low transaction​cost tool for writing all your reps in one fell swoop and just a reminder that the FCC vote on 18th is to begin the process of rolling back Net Neutrality so there will be a 3 month comment period and the final vote will likely be around the 18th of August at least that what I have read, correct me if am wrong

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A ship that can't hold on to its rats

    The deep pockets companies that were really pushing the NN movement along are wavering uncertainly, like a balloon that's almost out of air. Good thing there's that "groundswell of users" the author mentions to keep the ball rolling.

    Funny tho, the only people who seem to care a lot are IT folks like the El Reg readership. Outside that community the ground ain't swelling all that much.

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    What will an oligopoly feel like with the end of net neutrality.

    I don't know.

    But the US is going to find out.

    On the internet (being) big business is always better than being small and being biggest is best of all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yadda yadda....

      NN has not been implemented, so it cannot "end." What's ending is the push to make it law via the bureaucracy. And rightly so, since this is a job for Congress.

  5. captain_solo

    If true "neutrality" were legislated all those firms would be regulated because they all carry significant amounts of traffic on their infrastructure and have a vested interest in preventing disruptive competitors from moving into their territory. "Big Internet" was fine with the Executive branch unilaterally implementing things that gave them specific leverage over the companies that provide the access to their services over very expensive last mile infrastructure which they were unable to replace/bypass, they are less fine with the whole debate being carried out completely and in public where their own lack of care for their users and their own desire to quash fair competition from upstarts will be on display. Implementation by the FCC limited the scope to the infrastructure players and protected the non-ISP techies, but congress could regulate across the whole stack and they are and should be afraid of what that would do to their own desire to dominate markets.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like