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This is an issue that many of you may not know about. It is important to all of us.

It really is a loss for consumers! It is also a loss for innovation and new start up companies.

What about our right as consumers. We pay for access to content, not to a network to nowhere, or to the phone or cable companies content? It seems to me that there is a bit of a monopoly in many areas, especially when it comes to fixed lines.

Something seems a little lopsided to me.

federal appeals court on Tuesday opened the way for broadband providers to charge content companies for faster speeds, striking down federal rules that had required equal treatment of Internet traffic.

The court also threw out an FCC rule that barred providers from blocking Internet traffic outright.

Appeals Court Strikes Down FCC's Net Neutrality Rules

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CNN Article Quote

But net neutrality supporters warned that the decision could indeed open the way for ISPs like Verizon to compromise Web access.

"[T]he biggest broadband providers will race to turn the open and vibrant Web into something that looks like cable TV," Craig Aaron, president of the advocacy group Free Press, said in a statement. "They'll establish fast lanes for the few giant companies that can afford to pay exorbitant tolls and reserve the slow lanes for everyone else."

Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner who is now an adviser to the advocacy group Common Cause, urged the commission to reclassify broadband Internet service for regulatory purposes to preserve the Open Internet rules.

"The Court's decision today is poised to end the free, open and uncensored Internet that we have come to rely on," Copps said in a statement. "Without prompt corrective action by the Commission to reclassify broadband, this awful ruling will serve as a sorry memorial to the corporate abrogation of free speech."

Court strikes down net neutrality rules - Jan. 14, 2014

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Everybody seems to know this is a bad deal for consumers.

Hopefully the FCC can figure out a way to protect consumers.

Actually, the court accepted the FCC's reasoning behind why it felt Open Internet rules are necessary. But the judges said that the legal basis for the rules -- that is, basing the rules on the concept of common carriage -- was not appropriate.

"Equally important, the commission has adequately supported and explained its conclusion that, absent rules such as those set forth in the Open Internet Order, broadband providers represent a threat to Internet openness and could act in ways that would ultimately inhibit the speed and extent of future broadband deployment," the justices write. "Nothing in the record gives us any reason to doubt the commission's determination that broadband providers may be motivated to discriminate against and among edge providers.

Why you should care about Net neutrality (FAQ) | Mobile - CNET News



If you looked at the campaign contributions to congress versus what we pay... Cable and Telecom companies get to have their way with consumers on the cheap.

They don't discriminate, the pay both parties!

National Cable & Telecommunications Assn Summary | OpenSecrets