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Net Neutrality

Headline: Win for Obama on Net Neutrality, Mitch McConnell vows to overturn new FCC rules.

Republicans don't seem to understand what is at stake here, so I thought maybe I could explain it a little better.

Bill opens a pizza shop and is so successful that he opens a chain of pizza shops. The phone company sees this and opens their own pizza shop, but their pizza is dry and tasteless. Bill's pizza continues to grow. Phone pizza fizzles. The phone company decides they must act, so they zap Bill's phones. Suddenly Bill's customers can't get through without getting disconnected. Many get disgusted and start ordering from Phone pizza, where the calls go through immediately. Bill's business suffers, but his pizza is so good, people put up with the disruptions. Phone pizza gets even more aggressive. They start a rumor that calling Bill's pizza uses more bandwidth, so they start charging Bill's customers $.05 for every call. Even Bills loyal customers start leaving for Phone pizza. Soon, Bills pizza closes; Phone pizza raises their prices.

Now switch Bill's pizza for Netflix and Phone Pizza for Comcast, or another ISP. That is what Net Neutrality is all about. It isn't about federal intervention, which is what Mitch McConnell wants you to believe, it's about huge corporations running small businesses out of business so they can have monopolies.

Cable companies now are regulated that they are not allowed to disrupt service or charge service fees to use certain websites, but wireless isps are not subject to the same rules. Mitch McConnell vowed to run small businesses out of business in favor of his major supporters. We can't sit by and let him. The new rules must stay. Support the new FCC rules and better yet, demand they be extended to wireless service providers! You should be able to go to any website you want to, without service disruptions or extra fees.

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