Earlier this year, on the 15th of May, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a set of rules that would give Internet Service Providers (ISP's) an outrageous amount of content control. The proposal would essentially create two separate lanes of internet traffic, fast and slow. People will be able to pay for preferential treatment. Big businesses such as Netflix and Google will be able to pay the premium for the fast lane and we could be left in the dust. So what exactly is net neutrality? Net neutrality is the basic fundamental characteristic of the open internet architecture. It is the idea that all information transmitted over the Internet should be treated equally by ISP's at all points of their networks. This previously essential characteristic of the Internet is now under the threat from ISP's like Verizon and Comcast looking to further strengthen their monopolistic businesses. This long report will attempt to explain why net neutrality is important and what you yourself can do about it. .
Net Neutrality Necessity: Net Neutrality is important because of the protection it gives to people and content providers. For SMB's and large corporations, net neutrality guarantees the equal and unbiased delivery of their content to you. Whether you are trying to connect to Netflix or play Xbox Live with a friend, net neutrality allows people to have guaranteed access to the Internet. (Net Neutrality: What You Need to Know Now).
Preventing Bandwidth Throttling/ Data Discrimination: If your ISP is throttling your bandwidth they are deliberately slowing down your connection to the internet. Without any net neutrality rules some other company could be paying to slow my connection down. On the same level, a company could also pay for their connection to speed up. This is the fast lane of the internet. This usually ends up with SMBs remaining absent from the fast lane and finding their internet connection keeps failing.