By Steven Salzberg
The new FCC commission, Ajit Pai, formerly worked as a lawyer for Verizon. His plan to eliminate net neutrality is a bigger gift to Verizon than anything he's ever done before.
In just a few weeks, the FCC will vote to eliminate net neutrality. The vote isn't in doubt: with Pai in charge, the anti-neutrality votes have a 3-2 edge. Without net neutrality, Internet service providers will be able to charge web companies for "fast lanes," which they can't do now. Smaller companies and individual's websites may be slowed down so much as to render them unusable. The biggest service providers (Netflix, Google, Amazon, and others) will have to cough up extra money, but the consumers won't see any of that - all the benefits will go to the ISPs. Consumers will see their rates go up.