Pro-Market: One Year After the Net Neutrality Repeal: the FCC has Abdicated Its Role Protecting Consumers and Competition.

Today (December 14th) is the one-year anniversary of the FCC’s decision to repeal the net neutrality rules that had been in place since 2015. During the past year, there hasn’t been even one reason underlying that decision that has come true. In fact, the opposite is the case.

Prior to the net neutrality repeal, broadband providers argued that they would deploy their networks to more people, especially in underserved areas, that prices were going to go down and that there would be no blocking, no throttling, and no discrimination against or in favor of any particular Internet traffic.

The latter, in particular, turned out to be false: In September, researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst published a study showing that all four mobile carriers throttle video services like Netflix and YouTube for no particular reason, other than, perhaps, to force consumers to a more expensive tier of service.  The repeal of net neutrality has directly helped a company like AT&T, which now has DirectTV and the Time Warner properties, to favor its own video services and content. As 4K video becomes more prevalent, this is going to happen more and more. As long as your broadband provider tells you that this is what they’re going to do, you don’t really have any recourse.

More at Pro-Market.