> Does the FCC even have the authority to regulate net neutrality?
It depends on how the FCC classifies the ISPs. If the FCC classifies the ISPs as a common carrier, then yes that will basically force them to honor net neutrality. Due to <politics>, the FCC has been reticent to classify the ISPs as common carriers (instead classifying them as infomation services), but it has tried to regulate them as a common carrier in some ways (but not in all ways), ie net neutrality.
Recently verizon took the fcc to court over this and the gist of the court's ruling was 'The FCC has the power to enforce net neutrality on the ISPs iff it designates the ISPs as common carriers.'
> An effective net neutrality policy could even harm our economy, if its a rule that nobody else needs to play by.
An effective net neutrality rule could just as easily bolster our economy if no one else decides to play by that rule. What makes you think that net neutrality isn't a competitive advantage?
> If we want access to a free internet, we need to figure out how to democratize the infrastructure.
It's hard to democratize the infrastructure because it is so expensive to keep and maintain, short of nationalizing it like the interstate system, though based on the previous paragraph I don't think that's what you meant.
It depends on how the FCC classifies the ISPs. If the FCC classifies the ISPs as a common carrier, then yes that will basically force them to honor net neutrality. Due to <politics>, the FCC has been reticent to classify the ISPs as common carriers (instead classifying them as infomation services), but it has tried to regulate them as a common carrier in some ways (but not in all ways), ie net neutrality.
Recently verizon took the fcc to court over this and the gist of the court's ruling was 'The FCC has the power to enforce net neutrality on the ISPs iff it designates the ISPs as common carriers.'
> An effective net neutrality policy could even harm our economy, if its a rule that nobody else needs to play by.
An effective net neutrality rule could just as easily bolster our economy if no one else decides to play by that rule. What makes you think that net neutrality isn't a competitive advantage?
> If we want access to a free internet, we need to figure out how to democratize the infrastructure.
It's hard to democratize the infrastructure because it is so expensive to keep and maintain, short of nationalizing it like the interstate system, though based on the previous paragraph I don't think that's what you meant.