"By way of example, I read somewhere that at one point, one ISP (Comcast?) was considering going into the video streaming business, so they tried - or considered - blocking Netflix (or something similar) from their subscribers because it was a competitor."
Comcast and Netflix got into a dispute in 2014 because Comcast was throttling Netflix on their network in order to force Netflix to pay an access fee. Comcast argued that it was not a net neutrality issue because Netflix was the one delivering the content and had a choice of which lane to use - fast or slow. For a few weeks, it was so slow that it was maddeningly slow and almost impossible to use Netflix if you were a Comcast subscriber. Netflix agreed to pay Comcast an access fee, and then realized they were opening a Pandora's box - every other ISP would start demanding a fee.
In 2015, the FCC reclassified broadband providers as "common carriers", which made them subject to the FCC's regulation. New net neutrality rules went into effect a while later which prohibited blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. What the FCC will be voting on is whether to undo that reclassification, which in effect would kill net neutrality because the courts have already ruled that the FCC can only impose regulations on common carriers. |
