Both the news and social media have been filled with commentary on the issue of Net Neutrality – and particularly the protest being staged by a couple of hundred internet companies and activist groups about the FCC’s plans to ditch net neutrality regulations in the US.
The BBC asked Radiate B2B founder Mike Weston to join the World Business Briefing to discuss the FCC’s move and explore whether (or why) Net Neutrality matters. You can see the interview here.
We think the move is motivated by narrow political aims (rolling back legislation introduced only 2 years ago under Barack Obama’s presidency) and by ISP commercial interests. The new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, was formerly a corporate lawyer for Verizon, so there are claims that his view is biased toward his former employers.
The argument centres on whether it is fair for ISPs to profit from the infrastructure investment they’ve made in fast internet service by charging some Internet companies to get faster access to their customers via their network. The counter argument is that all web content should be treated without favour, commercial or otherwise in the spirit of a ‘free’ internet.
World Business Report, 12/07/2017
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