Blog Posts: Net Neutrality

In the last few weeks, more than 50,000 people have shown their support for the shareholders’ campaign to get AT&T, Sprint and Verizon to commit to wireless Net Neutrality.

Shareholders will vote on the question in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, more individuals and groups are coming out of the woodwork to support this bold move.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission offered no bonbons and forget-me-nots for AT&T this Valentine’s Day. On Tuesday, the SEC told AT&T and other telecoms that they must include a resolution supporting wireless Net Neutrality in annual shareholder ballots. The SEC found no merit in AT&T’s claim that such a resolution would “interfere with its network management practices and seriously impair its ability to provide wireless broadband service to its customers.”

The first-ever study on mobile donors found that charitable donations made via cellphones have jumped in recent years. The report from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Pew Research Center analyzed the “Text to Haiti” campaign that followed the devastating 2010 earthquake.

The study shows that most text donors contributed on impulse as news about the campaign spread via friend networks. “Three quarters of these donors contributed using their phones on the same day they heard about the campaign,” the study notes, “and a similar number say they typically make text message donations without conducting much in-depth research beforehand.”

Opponents of Net Neutrality often argue that Internet Service Providers need to divide the Internet into fast and slow lanes — providing a fast lane for those who can pay, a slow lane for everyone else — to invest in a fast Internet for all.