Forbes

John Kruzel at PolitiFact recently rated as “Half True” the claim that Verizon’s throttling of the data service it provided to the Santa Clara County Fire Prevention District (FPD) during the Mendocino (CA) fires demonstrated the danger of repealing the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality regulations. The claim should have been rated “Mostly False” to “Pants on Fire,” because the experts on whom Kruzel relied ignored critical facts and analysis.

[Commentary] At the moment, 36 states and Washington (DC) have introduced efforts to keep network neutrality. These efforts range from introducing legislation to filing lawsuits. At the moment, it’s too early to tell if these suits will be successful and if states will be allowed to implement their own rules for broadband. Now, let’s say these suits were to fail, and the repeal of net neutrality continued to move forward as planned. What impact would this have on consumers? 

[Commentary] A federal push to expand access to high-speed internet is incongruous with and state and local governments increasing their taxes on that service. Our federal government does not think this is desirable and is prepared to make a sizeable expenditure to increase access to high-speed broadband. To turn around and have another government entity tax the service it is subsidizing--and to use the money not to fund internet access in its community but treat it as general revenue, as Eugene (OR) does--defeats a rare bipartisan goal.