US FCC commissioner rebuts FCC chairman’s net neutrality stance

One of the two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission yesterday slammed the regulator's chairman Ajit Pai, pointing out how wrong he was in 2015 in predicting gloom and doom under net neutrality.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn took on Pai's 2015 predictions.

Pai as commissioner in 2015 predicted that the Open Internet Order, known more widely as net neutrality, would be struck down by the courts as illegal.

''False,'' Clyburn wrote. ''The DC Circuit twice upheld the 2015 order and rejected all of the statutory interpretation arguments Chairman Pai raised in his dissent,'' she added.

Pai had claimed that net neutrality would lead to ''slower broadband speeds.''

''False,'' Clyburn countered. ''Broadband speeds have continued to increase amid new investment by broadband providers.''

The move by Clyburn comes as the last chance to save net neutrality before Pai's repeal proposal goes to a vote on 14 December.

According to commentators, with the Republicans enjoying a 3-2 majority on the FCC, Pai's move to dismantle net neutrality seems all set to succeed.

Net neutrality ensures that broadband providers cannot discriminate against any content by giving its proprietary content priority.

In the absence of such a provision, broadband providers would be able to charge companies like Amazon and Netflix extra fees to guarantee speedy passage of their content through the distributors' pipes.

Meanwhile, Brendan Carr, a commissioner on the FCC in an article in The Washington Post, titled, No, the FCC is not killing the Internet writes that the next month's FCC vote will simply return the internet to the same regulatory framework that governed in 2015 and for the 20 years that preceded it.

He writes that the internet flourished under this approach, and consumers and innovators alike benefited from a free and open internet.

He writes that the FCC's plan ensures that several protections are in place including additional consumer protections that do not exist under the current regulatory regime.