It appears that companies that were against net neutrality rules want to take things one step further. Comcast and Charter are now working to have Congress push their agenda even more.
In a blog post after the FCC repeal vote, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Office David Cohen wrote that “we really must have bipartisan congressional legislation to permanently preserve and solidify net neutrality protections for consumers and to provide ongoing certainty to ISPs and edge providers alike.”
Yesterday’s vote removed FCC’s power to enforce net neutrality provisions on ISPs. Now that FCC has no control, the weaker FTC will now “regulate” ISPs. FTC has a lot less power than FCC, to point out. The FTC can only enforce a company’s own terms and conditions on itself, so basically ISPs are free to do whatever they want and however they want, as long as they’re following their own terms and conditions.
Comcast and Charter both want a bill to be introduced in Congress, passed in both houses, and put net neutrality repeal provisions into law. The kind of bill that Comcast wants is looking for would have the broadest possible strikes, and leave many doors open for different forms of discriminations like zero-rating.
Comcast is seeking a “light regulatory approach that would protect the openness of the Internet but that would also protect the continued investment and innovation that has made the Internet the vibrant and dynamic place that it is today.”
