The Federal Communications Commission created a regulation that required all Internet Service Providers to treat their customers equally. That rule was recently overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. While free market advocates support this new ruling, others are worried that the government is beginning to dismantle net neutrality protections. What are the implications of this new decision?
Many Customers May Need to Pay More
The appellate court ruled that ISPs are allowed to offer different levels of service to their customers. They can now place more limitations on large companies such as NetFlix that use a lot of bandwidth unless they agree to pay a lot more for them.
NetFlix may need to start paying a lot more money for these services in the near future, which means that those costs will be pushed to the customers. Companies that offer free video streaming services may need to start charging fees for their services.
Other Net Neutrality Changes Could Be on the Horizon
The FCC has created other net neutrality laws that ISPs need to abide by. They have stated that ISPs cannot bar people from accessing different sites. That decision was upheld by the courts, but ISPs have raised convincing arguments to overturn those polices as well.
This could mean that many people will have difficulty accessing gaming sites. They may need to start using proxies or VPNs to bypass these blocks.
Will Net Neutrality Be Restored?
The recent court decision was a major blow to net neutrality. However, a new law could help promote net neutrality again.
Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate have introduced a new bill called the Open Internet Preservation Act. This legislation would force ISPs to promote an open Internet. Most net neutrality activists hope that the new law will be passed, but it could take at least a year before it is enacted. Even if the law does go into effect, many ISPs will likely find ways to circumvent it.
Internet Users Should Be Prepared
Internet users should be prepared for changes. They may need to start paying for higher quality services. They may also find that they are blocked from accessing many sites. They may end up using services such as those offered by www.SmartDNSProxy.com to circumvent future ISP blocks that they may encounter.
Lawmakers may try to prevent net neutrality in the future. However, for the time being it appears that the open Internet is under attack.
