The Internet is a powerful thing. It teaches. It connects people who wouldn’t have been able to collaborate otherwise. It allows us to progress beyond our wildest dreams.
To allow a group of oligopolistic service providers to control the way we receive our data, to their own benefit, is completely unacceptable. Comcast has already done this by charging Netflix extra fees to continue to provide their consumers with acceptable data speeds. Hulu (a Netflix competitor partially owned by NBC, which is owned by Comcast) has had no apparent fees charged, despite providing essentially the same service.
I urge representatives Jim Matheson (on behalf of Lehi) and Jason Chaffetz (on behalf of Provo) and senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee to speak on behalf of the people who elected them. Tell FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former cable and wireless industry lobbyist, not to continue with the proposed plan that would allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to charge for preferential treatment. ISPs should be appropriately reclassified as Title II Common Carrier Telecommunications Services. Any other classification allows them to use loopholes to bypass laws put in place by the FCC in 2005.
Please help us save the Internet from turning into the overpriced, cartel-led industry that cable television has become.
Gary Crye
BYU computer science major
Lehi
