The agreement between Netflix and Comcast to provide better service to customers on the Comcast wasn’t a one-off blip in net neutrality. It was actually the first in what could be many content deals that could see your price for web services increase.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow internet service providers the ability to charge websites for faster service in transmitting data to users on their network.

The result of the vote was three to two along party lines. Shockingly, for casual followers of American politics, it was the Democrats voting in favour of the proposal and the Republicans voting against. I would have thought that the GOP commissioners would have been in favour of this proposal but maybe they thought it wasn’t business friendly enough.

Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel was quoted as saying, “I believe the process that got us to rulemaking today was flawed. I would have preferred a delay,” despite the fact that she voted in favour of the proposal. The party whip must have been hard at work on this one.

It should be noted that while the FCC has given the sign-off to this change of internet regulations. Finalization of the rules and entering them into law is still pending. Between now and then, the proposed rules are up for comment from the public before they enter the finalization stage.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen the FCC move away from advocating pure net neutrality in search of a hybrid between full net neutrality and something that gives more revenue opportunities to the ISPs. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently said that the proposed fast lanes was the best solution to ensure neutrality principles while abiding by a recent Supreme Court ruling abolishing the FCC’s recent net neutrality rules. Naturally, consumers and tech companies think this is a terrible idea… not that the FCC will listen to them.

Source: Washington Post