Opinion

FCC Should Retain Net Neutrality for Sake of Consumers

Nicholas Economides
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Violating network neutrality will make consumers and 99 percent of businesses worse off.
By Nicholas Economides
Not even a week after being named the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai has introduced a plan to remove transparency rules for Internet service providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers and begin to reverse net neutrality. These moves should send a clear message to Americans: the battle for a “free and open Internet” is back on.

After ten years of back-and-forth between the telecom and cable TV monopolies on one side and the rest of the U.S. business sector and consumers on the other, network neutrality rules were adopted by the FCC in 2015 and upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals in 2016. These rules guarantee that news and information flowing through the Internet reaches consumers and businesses without artificial delays imposed by telecom and cable companies.

Read the full article as published by The Hill. 

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Nicholas Economides is a Professor of Economics.