@djensen:
Net Neutrality rules have been in effect since the Bush era, since 2010. It wasn’t until 2015 that a court struck down those rules because ISP had to be classified as Title II, that that was done to keep NN in tact.
Not true. The term “net neutrality” was coined in 2003. In 2004, the FCC encouraged ISP’s to abide by these four principles (called “Network Freedom”):
1. Freedom to access content
2. Freedom to run applications
3. Freedom to attach devices
4. Freedom to obtain service plan information
None of this was signed into law, or even an official policy, but from a speech by then Chairman Michael Powell.
In 2005, the Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s decision that a cable internet provider is an “information service,” (Title I) not a “telecommunication” service (Title II) in a 6-3 vote. In the same year, the FCC issued the a policy statement announcing they would adopt the following guidlines:
_� To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected
nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of
their choice.
� To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected
nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their
choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
� To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected
nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that
do not harm the network.
� To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected
nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to competition among network providers,
application and service providers, and content providers._
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-151A1.pdf
This was just a policy, however, and had no legal implications, especially since high-speed internet service classified under Title I, giving less authority over it.
In 2008, the FCC tried to enforce these guidelines legally against Comcast, but was overruled by an appeals court.
In 2010, the FCC adopted the FCC Open Internet Order, which was the first official rules regulating the internet:
_1. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user�s choice over the Internet.
2. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user�s choice.
3. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user�s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network.
4. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not deprive any of its users of the user�s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers, and content providers.
5. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner.
6. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in this part._
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/10/26/net-neutrality-when-network-management-reasonable/
Key phrase here is “reasonable network management,” which is basically an open ended way of saying that the FCC gets to determine when and where these rules would be applied.
This could arguably have been the start of legal net neutrality, but after the 2014 case Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, the Court of appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the FCC’s Open Internet Order could only be applied to common carriers, basically invalidating the 2010 regulations.
Finally, in 2015, the FCC reversed it’s 2005 decision and voted to define the internet as a “telecommunications” service (Title II) instead of a “information” service (Title I), making ISP’s common carriers.
What happened in 2017 was that the Internet was again redefined as an information service (Title I). So yes, the idea of Net Neutrality has been around for a while, but it had no power until 2015. And as I said before, up until 2015 the Internet has doing more than fine fine without the government regulating it.