US faces moment of truth on net neutrality

If 2015 neutrality rules rolled back, it be end of “open internet”

The acrimonious battle over “net neutrality” in America comes to a head Thursday with a US agency set to vote to roll back rules enacted two years earlier aimed at preventing a “two- speed” internet.

The federal communications commission ( FCC) was expected to narrowly pass the measure to scrap the 2015 neutrality rules, which require internet service providers to treat all online traffic equally without blocking or hampering of rivals.

Backers of the new proposal say it would encourage innovation and investment by removing heavy regulatory burdens. But critics argue it could kill the ‘ open internet’ and enable broadband firms to choose what people see or don’t see online.

The rollback is being engineered by FCC chairman Ajit Pai. As a member of the FCC, Mr Pai was a fierce critic of the neutrality rules adopted in 2015 and earlier this month unveiled his plan named the “Restoring Internet Freedom” order.

Amid a wave of protests from online firms and activists opposing the new plan, Mr Pai said his reforms would usher in a return to a “light- touch regulatory approach” that has allowed the internet to flourish.

The dispute over net neutrality has been the subject of several court battles over the past decade, with backers arguing strong rules are needed to guard against powerful broadband firms like Comcast and AT& T acting as “gatekeepers” that can punish rivals.

Tim Berners- Lee, the British engineer and creator of the World Wide Web, joined other internet pioneers in pleading for neutrality rules to remain.

“Net neutrality — the principle that internet service providers ( ISPs) treat all traffic equally — underpins the internet as we know it today,” Berners- Lee wrote on the online platform Medium this week.

But Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who in 2005 evoked the principle of “four internet freedoms” — which some say parallel net neutrality — said activists are stirring a tempest in a teapot.

“New- age Nostra- damuses predict the internet will stop working, democracy will collapse, plague will ensue and locusts will cover the land,” Powell said in a guest blog for the website Recode.

“Sadly, rational debate, like Elvis, has left the building,” said Mr Powell, who now heads the lobby group for broadband firms called NCTA.