An important question, but they are separate issues to an extent because some NN rules are necessary to protect consumers even in a fully-competitive market.

That said, certain rules to ease build-out and "overbuilding" like one-touch-make-ready can improve the competitive situation for wired broadband, as well as federal policies that subsidize rural build-out.

Also, we need to get the Sprint/T-Mobile merger blocked in court, since the last thing we need is less wireless competition.

The lobbying effort on the other side is intense, and has been for as long as I've been working on this issue. They have money and lobbyists, but we have the better arguments, and the people on our side. We won before and can win again.

It is true that the FCC is not implementing last-mile unbundling obligations in these rules, but there are still other steps the FCC can take to encourage competition for consumers, like examining all the potential harms of mergers or encouraging the deployment of new networks through efforts like municipal broadband.

-- Jodie

I'm hopeful that on this issue, Chairman Wheeler actually had the courage to listen to the opinions of average Americans and change his proposal. Its hard to go against an army of industry lobbyists!

My Worry... Its hard for 435 members of Congress to have the same collective courage

Chris

You can contact your Senator to and ask him or her to support the Save the Internet Act, participate in futher FCC proceedings, and go here:

https://www.publicknowledge.org/act-now/tell-congress-to-save-net-neutrality/

And feel free to contribute to the nonprofits who are participating in this AMA!