NetNeutrality
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Study finds US carriers aggressively throttle video streams
US carriers engage in far more aggressive throttling practices than they've led their subscribers to believe, claims a new study. Verizon (Engadget's parent company), AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have long said they reserve the right to slow down traffic to manage congestion on their networks. When exactly this happens is supposed to depend on the type of plan you have. But in reality, a joint team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Northeastern University found the big four throttle video traffic at all times of day, irrespective of any actual congestion on their networks.
House of Representatives passes bill to restore net neutrality
The House of Representatives has passed a bill which would restore net neutrality rules the Federal Communications Commission repealed in 2017. Representatives approved the bill by 232-190 (with a sole Republican voting in favor), but the legislation still seems doomed.
House Democrats will introduce bill to reinstate net neutrality rules
Now that the Democrats have the majority in the US House of Representatives, net neutrality is back on the table. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has revealed that Democrats will introduce a bill to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules on March 6th. They haven't detailed just what the legislation would include, but its not-so-subtle name (the Save the Internet Act) makes the bill's intentions clear.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai cancels CES appearance
For the second year in a row, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has cancelled his appearance at CES, though this time around, it's under very different circumstances. According to Politico Pro, both he and Commissioner Brendan Carr have had to cancel their CES plans due to the partial government shutdown that's still ongoing. Pai was supposed to discuss FCC plans with the Consumer Technology Association's Gary Shapiro while Carr was scheduled to take part in a roundtable discussion.
Utah ISP's internet filtering ad knocks customers offline
Internet providers are no stranger to targeting and inserting ads, but CenturyLink is being a little more... direct. Utah-based customers have discovered that CenturyLink is blocking their internet connections until they acknowledge an ad for the ISP's parental control software. That's annoying by itself, but it's doubly so when users need to fire up a web browser to even know the ad is there. Customer Rich Snapp, for instance, had his Fire TV stream interrupted and didn't realize the ad was present until he started troubleshooting.
Justice Department investigates fake net neutrality comments
The scrutiny over fake net neutrality comments appears to be intensifying. Sources talking to BuzzFeed News said the Justice Department is investigating whether or not there were crimes when people posted millions of bogus comments on the FCC's net neutrality repeal, stealing many people's identities in the process. The FBI reportedly subpoenaed at least two organizations for information "a few days" after New York state did for its own investigation, according to the insiders.
Senators urge FCC to preserve neutrality protections for text messages
A group of Democratic senators led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to keep text messages classified as a telecommunications service. Doing so would extend net neutrality protections to the messages, rather than give carriers the ability to block them based on content. The FCC will vote December 12th on a declaratory ruling that would classify SMS and MMS messages as information services.
FCC chairman admits Russia meddled in net neutrality debate
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has admitted that around 500,000 comments submitted during the net neutrality public comment period were linked to Russian email addresses. Pai noted in a court filing that most of the comments were in favor of net neutrality, which the FCC repealed last December.
Supreme Court won't hear appeal over Obama-era net neutrality rules
Net neutrality just secured a court victory... unfortunately, it won't make much of a difference in the near future. The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a 2016 DC court ruling that upheld the FCC's Obama-era net neutrality rules, leaving the earlier decision intact. The brief notice didn't explain why the Supreme Court had rejected the request, but noted that conservative Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas would have overturned the lower court's verdict. Chief Justice Roberts and newly sworn-in Justice Kavanaugh weren't involved in the decision due to respective conflict of interest issues and past involvement.
California delays net neutrality law while federal lawsuit plays out
Last month, California's governor signed the state's net neutrality bill into law, legislation that restores the net neutrality protections the FCC repealed last year. However, the state was quickly hit with a lawsuit from both the Department of Justice and industry groups representing companies like AT&T, Charter and Verizon, which claimed the law ran afoul of the FCC's regulations. California's law was set to take effect at the start of next year, but the state has now agreed to delay its implementation and stay the litigation until a federal challenge to the FCC's decision is settled.
New study dissects FCC net neutrality commenter backgrounds
A new study out of Stanford University has found that while nearly every unique comment filed in response to the FCC's proposal to repeal net neutrality opposed the agency's plan, net neutrality support was geographically widespread and spanned party lines. The FCC's comment system has attracted quite a bit of criticism, with many reports detailing how massive amounts of fake comments were included among legitimate ones. Because of this, the study notes, it's unclear what people really said to the FCC through its comment system.
FCC and DOJ urge court to reject challenge to net neutrality repeal
The FCC is facing a lawsuit over its repeal of net neutrality, an action brought forward by 22 states, Washington, DC and a number of other local governments, rights groups and businesses. Now, the agency and the US Department of Justice have weighed in, filing a 167-page document late Thursday evening in support of the FCC's decision. Reuters reports that the DOJ's comments note the lawsuit offers "no substantial reason to second-guess the commission's decision to eliminate rules that the agency has determined are both unlawful and unwise."
Internet industry groups sue California over net neutrality law
Industry groups representing AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon among others have joined the Justice Department in suing California over the state's new net neutrality law. The groups said the legislation is a "classic example of unconstitutional state regulation" and asked the court to block the law before it takes effect January 1st, Reuters reports.
CA governor signs net neutrality bill into law, Justice Department sues
A net neutrality bill that its sponsor Scott Weiner calls "the strongest in the nation" (after being restored to its original form) is now state law in California after being signed by governor Jerry Brown. SB 822 is intended to restore the protections put in place by a (now-rescinded) 2015 FCC Order, as well as closing "loopholes" that its backers said could have allowed anti-competitive forms of zero-rating. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai captained the effort to repeal those rules, and has called the bill "illegal," setting the stage for a squabble between the state and federal government. And just as quickly as the bill has been signed, the New York Times reports that the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against it. In a statement, the department claimed "Senate Bill 822, an Internet regulation bill signed into law earlier today by Governor Jerry Brown, unlawfully imposes burdens on the Federal Government's deregulatory approach to the Internet."
NYT lawsuit accuses FCC of withholding evidence of Russian meddling
Are you frustrated that the FCC has been reluctant to cooperate with investigations into fake anti-net neutrality comments? So is the New York Times. The newspaper has sued the FCC after the regulator repeatedly refused to provide server logs for its public comment system under the Freedom of Information Act, even after the NYT reduced the scale of its requests. Journalists believe the records will "shed light" on the degree to which Russians interfered with both the commenting process and American democracy at large.
FCC’s Ajit Pai labels California net neutrality law 'illegal'
FCC head honcho, Ajit Pai, didn't mince words in comments regarding California's recent passing of a tough net neutrality bill. In his keynote speech for neoconservative policy organization Maine Heritage Policy Center, Pai called California's SB 822 "illegal" and said it "poses a risk to the rest of the country." Pai also hinted that he'd be coming for California should SB 822, seen as the toughest net neutrality law in the nation, receive the governor's signature, as it's expected to in the next two weeks.
California's net neutrality bill is one signature away from taking effect
After SB 822 passed California's state Assembly yesterday, it just needed (re)approval from the Senate before going in front of the governor to be signed into law. The net neutrality bill that its sponsor Scott Weiner calls "the strongest in the nation" got the necessary votes this evening despite opposition from groups representing ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. Stanford Center for Internet and Society director Barbara van Schewick said in a statement that "SB 822 sets the standard for other states to follow. SB 822 is the only state-level bill that truly restores all the 2015 net neutrality protections. That's what makes it so special. Most state-level bills have just copied the text of the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules, leaving out critical protections. By contrast, SB 822 includes the important protections and clarifications in the full Order which explained the rules and closed known loopholes." According to Weiner, "when Donald Trump's FCC decided to take a wrecking ball to net neutrality protections, we knew that California had to step in to ensure our residents have access to a free and open internet." The EFF noted Verizon's recent throttling of internet to firefighters battling a blaze in Mendocino, saying that because the Open Internet order was repealed earlier this year, it could escape "meaningful" punishment for that.
California's net neutrality bill is a step closer to becoming law
Now that the FCC has undone net neutrality protections implemented under the Obama Administration, one response has been to implement tight regulation at the state level. Tonight in California's State Assembly lawmakers passed SB 822 by a vote of 61 - 18, sending it back to the state Senate complete with amendments to bolster some of the protections that keep internet providers from establishing fast/slow lanes or zero-rating certain content. The Senate already passed an earlier version of the bill missing those amendments, and the Mercury News reports that body is expected to pass this one again on Friday, sending it to the desk of governor Jerry Brown. The CTIA, which represents wireless companies including Engadget parent company Verizon, and the California Cable & Telecommunications Association (CCTA) which represents ISPs including Comcast, Charter and Cox released a joint statement claiming "this legislation contains extreme provisions rejected by the Obama FCC in 2015." Their stance is that national legislation is what is needed, but the statement did not specify what that should include. So far, the US Congress has been unable to pass new legislation addressing net neutrality, and supporters of the bill hope this will push more states to implement similar rules.
Verizon data throttling hampered response to Mendocino wildfire
Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden has filed an addendum (PDF) as part of a lawsuit headed by 22 state attorneys general that's seeking to reinstate net neutrality regulations repealed by the FCC in December. In the addendum, Ars Technica reports, the fire chief claims that Verizon throttled an unlimited data plan to the extent that it made the service useless during efforts to fight wildfires. The move specifically affected a department vehicle used to "track, organize and prioritize routing of resources from around the state and country to sites where they are needed most."
Lawmakers ask Ajit Pai about false DDoS claims
A handful of Democratic lawmakers have some questions for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai regarding claims of a DDoS attack that the Inspector General recently concluded were false. Specifically, they want to know when Pai became aware that disruption to the agency's net neutrality comment system may not have been due to a DDoS attack and why the agency didn't correct its public statements alleging a DDoS attack before now. "It is troubling that you allowed the public myth created by the FCC to persist and your misrepresentations to remain uncorrected for over a year," they wrote in a letter to Pai today. The letter was signed by Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ), Mike Doyle (PA), Jerry McNerney (CA) and Debbie Dingell (MI).
