California Lawmakers Pass Nation’s Toughest Net Neutrality Law

Authored by nytimes.com and submitted by ani625
image for California Lawmakers Pass Nation’s Toughest Net Neutrality Law

WASHINGTON — California lawmakers on Friday passed a bill that would guarantee full and equal access to the internet — a principle known as net neutrality — in the biggest pushback yet to the federal government’s rollback of rules last year.

The California bill is viewed as even stronger and more consumer-friendly than the original measures carried out by the Obama administration and abolished in December by the Trump-era Federal Communications Commission. It is sure to set up a fight between broadband providers, which say strict rules would increase their costs, and consumer groups, which seek to ensure that all traffic on the internet is treated equally.

It is the latest effort in a growing fight against deregulation by the Trump administration. Federal agencies that have slashed regulations on telecommunications are being challenged in court by more than 20 states. Thirty states have introduced bills to ensure net neutrality.

If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, California would become the fourth state to create a net neutrality law since the federal rollback, but it is considered the most significant. “This bill would set a tremendous precedent, with the power to shape the internet market not just in California but across the country for the betterment of consumers,” Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, said in a statement.

bukithd on September 1st, 2018 at 10:27 UTC »

People need to realize that state governments are more powerful in these situations than the federal government. Your state election matters folks.

gw2master on September 1st, 2018 at 09:24 UTC »

Not enough. Your water/gas/electric company is regulated as a utility because:

it needs to run its pipes through public and private (non-customer) lands. All the permissions/permits required for this already stop nearly all possible competition. This is not a free market, where the assumption is that competitors can enter and leave at will.

water/gas/electricity are essential to modern life.

Both are true of internet. In fact look at your ISP, was it a phone or cable TV company before? They already had the "pipes." It's nearly impossible to break into the business.

Not convinced? Imagine if your utilities were not regulated, allowing, for example, your electric company to provide shitty, spotty service. And this is at sky high prices. But you have to pay because you need electricity.

Even worse, now imagine your electricity company decided to make AC, TVs, and refrigerators. Imagine if they cut power to any AC, TV, or refrigerator that was not of their brand. You're a captive audience now, you think their brand of TV (or whatever) is going to be quality?

Alternatively, they don't go into the appliance industry. They extort GE: if you don't pay us we'll intermittently turn off power to GE fridges and your customers will blame it on poor manufacturing. GE has no choice but to pay... and now you pay more for GE fridges.

All of this, ISPs are doing or have already been caught doing (for example, it was recently revealed that Comcast was shaking down Netflix with the threat of poor bandwith... the result: customers got shitty streaming quality, and probably blamed Netflix).

Think about this: how is it possible that your ISP provides shit service at the ridiculous prices it does and yet it's probably one of the richest companies in America. Look up your ISP, it's probably gobbled up more than a few media companies in the past few years.

ChupaMeJerkwad on September 1st, 2018 at 04:48 UTC »

Very timely of California considering how Verizon throttled those firefighters in the middle of an emergency.

The article mentions New York state is considering a similar bill. That would be two of the largest markets smacking Ajit Pai back into place.