Net Neutrality Repeal: What Could Happen and How It Could Affect You<br />That will no longer be true, Mr. Bell wrote, without net neutrality rules<br />that “ensure that anyone who puts something on the internet has a fair shot at finding a life-changing audience.”<br />The government-backed guarantee of equal access is why public interest groups, nongovernmental organizations, charities<br />and millions of private citizens wrote to the F. C.C.<br />C.C., AT&T called the Obama-era rules “an unprecedented regulatory overreach for which there is no economic or marketplace justification.”<br />rules mandated net neutrality principles under a utility-style telecommunications law, called Title 2, that dates to 1934.<br />Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University who is credited with coining the phrase “net<br />neutrality,” said the repeal plan not only rolls back the Obama-era rules, it goes further.<br />The major broadband and telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast have argued<br />that utility-style regulation represents unnecessary government meddling that will reduce their incentives to invest and improve service.<br />For you and me, the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to repeal net neutrality rules can be boiled down to two questions: What might happen?<br />But the broadband and telecom companies — and some economists — say<br />that the freedom to charge different prices for different products and services is vital to healthy markets.
