Net Neutrality is about to change. Under the Obama administration, Net Neutrality meant that everyone delivered data at the same rate of speed. Now making companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T “common carriers”, they will be able to throttle the speed of any site that want to. Companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime would be slowed down on streaming video delivery unless they pay a higher fee. Like every other additional charge, it would be passed on to us.
According to Wired, “AT&T and Verizon used data limits for anticompetitive purposes, effectively ruling that the two companies could exempt their own video services from customers’ data caps but still charge for data used by their competitors’ services.”
The internet is the golden goose that has not truly helped the feds as much as they wanted. This could increase taxes to the fed once service providers are called “common carriers”. The fed would tax the additional service through the FCC like our phones for additional fees. An example of this for my firm is Vimeo. Right now we pay around $400.00 per year to stream client content. This ruling would likely double the fee and add new levels to subscription fees. Not everyone likes the commercial aspect of YouTube and prefers the control Vimeo gives them. It will cost more to keep this standard. How much more will you have to pay for that Netflix movie?
These changes could happen as early as next year. So be ready to pay more.
Jim Mahlmann
COO, NetCetra LLC