[FlameOn]

The FCC has voted to dismantle net neutrality. The panel has had two seats vacant since the resignation of Tom Wheeler after Trump pressure. This left the GOP control two seats of the five seats at the FCC with Trump having neglected to do any nominations for replacements. FCC voted 2-1 along party lines to repeal net neutrality.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to start the process of eliminating net neutrality rules and the classification of home and mobile Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes eliminating the Title II classification and seeks comment on what, if anything, should replace the current net neutrality rules. But Chairman Ajit Pai is making no promises about reinstating the two-year-old net neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content, or prioritizing content in exchange for payment. Pai's proposal argues that throttling websites and applications might somehow help Internet users.

The FCC plans to take comments on its plan until August 16 (the docket is available here) and then make a final decision sometime after that.

The net neutrality rules were approved in February 2015 when Republicans were in the commission's minority. Today, Pai and fellow Republican Michael O'Rielly voted in favor of the plan to eliminate the rules while Democrat Mignon Clyburn voted to preserve them.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...itle-ii-rules/

Democrats are threatening all out war for this

Rep. Frank Pallone is like many Democrats in the U.S. Congress: He’s itching for a fight over net neutrality.

To the New Jersey congressman, the Obama administration “did its job” when it acted in 2015 to stop internet providers from meddling with the way that consumers use the web. The telecom industry didn’t like the rules, of course, but Pallone saw them as the only way to prevent AT&T, Charter, Comcast* and Verizon from blocking or slowing down online content.

So when the Trump administration begins its work Thursday to kill the open-internet protections currently on the government’s books, Pallone and his allies intend to return fire. They’re already pledging to embark on a take-no-prisoners political crusade — one that also threatens to make the internet’s most intractable debate even louder and harder to solve.

“Nobody believes the Republicans [who] are saying they want strong net neutrality, [or] they’re going to come up with a better way,” said Pallone, the top Democrat on the House committee overseeing the FCC, during an interview with Recode. “I’m not interested in this nonsense.”

“It’ll be a campaign issue if they repeal it,” he added. “Our focus now is to say to the FCC, please don’t do this.”

In many ways, net neutrality is the internet’s longest war: So far, it has spanned two decades, four presidents, scores of court challenges and multiple, wonky rulemaking proceedings at the nation’s telecom regulator, the FCC. It has pitted the country’s cable and broadband giants, which abhor regulation, against the likes of Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and a host of startups that firmly believe net neutrality rules are critical to their existence.

https://www.recode.net/2017/5/18/156...utrality-rules