International Views Aired on Title II

On the eve of the net-neutrality activist groups' Day of [Title II] Advocacy on Capitol Hill, one of those groups, Fight for the Future, was circulating a letter that had been sent to the Hill from more than 200 international companies and groups, including Reporters Without Borders.

The letter said the FCC's "rollback" of net-neutrality provisions would grant ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T "new powers to control the internet."

They cited paid prioritization as one of those new powers--there is currently a ban on paid prioritization in the Open Internet order, but the FCC is rethinking all the bright-line rules.

Paid prioritization, they argued, would create a "patchwork of new monopolies" rather than an open market.

"We are companies and organisations headquartered outside the United States of America," they told Congress, "and we are concerned about how the rollback of U.S. Title II net neutrality rules could negatively impact the world’s shared Internet ecosystem."

The FCC reportedly received millions of comments sent from outside the U.S. on the proposal to roll back Title II.

(Photo via Rock1997Image taken on Jan. 18, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 16x9 aspect ratio.)

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.