Net Neutrality Wins. Consumers win.

Finally, those of us who get their telephone service via the internet can rest easy, now that it's considered a UTILITY!!! Because that's what it is.

PC World: The FCC has voted to approve new net neutrality rules by reclassifying broadband as a regulated public utility, over the objections of the commission’s Republican members and large broadband providers.

The commission voted 3-2; to prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and from offering paid traffic prioritization services. The commission’s vote on the new rules prompted loud applause from the audience at the FCC meeting, although FCC staff said the agency will forbear from applying about 700 traditional telecom rules, such as price regulation and forced sharing of networks with competitors.

The order applies net neutrality regulations to mobile, as well as fixed, broadband providers.

Upside down Republicans are saying that "no rules"…are rules. Of course they use that same logic “deregulating” business by regulating consumers instead.

Wheeler defended the rules, saying free expression on the Internet is too important “to be left without rules and without a referee on the field.” He also disputed critics who say the net neutrality rules amount to regulation of the Internet.

“This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech,” he said. “They both stand for the same concept.”

Dozens of digital rights and consumer groups applauded the FCC’s decision. The vote “preserves the ethos of permissionless innovation that’s always been at the heart of the Internet,” Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, said in a video shown during the FCC meeting.

The dumbest argument that makes my head hurt? That the big cable monopolies will stop investing and innovating. I’m sure they’ll just sit there stewing over this for decades, letting everything fall apart, right? With that attitude, competitors will have a field day overtaking these gluttonous bullies.  

Each of the five commissioners spoke and the Republicans delivered a scathing critique of the order as overly broad, vague and unnecessary. Ajit Pai, a Republican commissioner, said the rules were government meddling in a vibrant, competitive market and were likely to deter investment, undermine innovation and ultimately harm consumers. “The Internet is not broken,” Mr. Pai said. “There is no problem to solve.”

It wasn't broken yet. Republicans never think ahead.