By Donald Kaufman
On Wednesday, the California state Senate approved guarantees of net neutrality that are stricter than the ones the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) implemented in 2015. Those federal rules prohibited blocking, throttling (intentionally limiting available bandwidth) and paid prioritization.
In December 2017, under Republican-controlled leadership, the FCC repealed the 2015 rules. The commission had received 23.5 million public comments, 98.5 percent of which contained requests that the FCC oppose the repeal. Polls at that time showed Americans favored the
2015 guarantees by 83 percent (75 percent of polled Republicans were in favor of net neutrality).