As discussed on Sunday’s show, President Obama intends to sign an executive order tomorrow, February 27, 2015, with the purpose of endorsing a plan stimulate the necessary exchange of information on cybersecurity threats between the private and government agencies. Simply put, he is looking to open up the lines of communication between organizations and government agencies in order to quickly identify and protect against cyberattacks, risks and hacking.
The White House will be host this Cybersecurity summit at Stanford University. Among the invited are the Senior government leaders, several financial, technological and computer security industry CEO’s, Apple, Intel, Bank of America and of course the President. The controversy here is that the US government is seeking ways to better monitor personal email account as well as all other social media activity. Meanwhile these companies are most worried about how assisting in these surveillance projects will make them less viable in other countries.
With obvious reason, it is clear the need for such a discussion. However, the question still remains, what will happen TODAY???? It has been ongoing for some 10 years now about how to employ equal opportunity rights when it comes to the internet. So, will the FCC finally come to a decision? After a more than yearlong debate, will they reveal which new rules will be implemented and how?
After last year’s proposal, submitted by Chairman Tom Wheeler, was rejected by the Federal Communications Commission, he forcibly made several adjustments and is now ready to resubmit his proposal. This may not sound very relevant to you personally but let me explain why it is important you understand what is happening. First and foremost, Net Neutrality or the principles they aim to protect are just guidelines that will ensure the internet and all of its traffic would be treated equally. In other words, no more paying for better faster internet. For entrepreneurs this just means you will be treated just as companies like Netflix or Google.
So these are the 6 main principles of Wheeler’s proposal:
- No blocking-Wireless, cable and satellite provider cannot block access to legal content, applications, services or non-harmful devices.
- No throttling- Broadband providers cannot slow down the delivery of lawful internet traffic because one is receiving more traffic than another.
- No paid prioritization- Broadway providers cannot favor traffic from one network over another, meaning ISP can’t charge for faster internet services. Furthermore, no more “pay for play”, in that one company can’t push their own services over services offered by their competitors.
- Open internet conduct standard- ISP’s are prohibited adopting practices that would harm consumers or “edge providers”, such as Netflix and Hulu.
- Transparency- ISP’s will be required to provide specific details about how they intend to manage and run their networks.
- Reasonable network management- ISP’s will be allowed to continue to monitor and regulate traffic on their networks, however, network management cannot be used to promote providers commercials services. So basically, companies like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint can no longer charge for the amount of data a customer uses.
One of the major differences in the two regulations is that wireless services will be treated the same as wired broadband. So your home internet will be treated the same as what is provided by your wireless service. Later today 5 FCC members will vote with the expectations of gaining approval.
Do you believe the FCC should vote yes on this?
Do you feel the attention should be on tomorrow’s executive order?
Tell me your opinion!