By Angelita Faller

A commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) emphasized the importance of last week’s net neutrality vote while visiting Grambling State University on March 3.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who was appointed to the FCC in 2009, was one of three commissioners last week that voted in favor of net neutrality, also known as open Internet.

This vote will allow the FCC to stop Internet service providers from slowing down or blocking web traffic or giving quicker Internet access to companies who pay higher prices.

“We are grabbing headlines in one of the most controversial issues in recent history, Internet neutrality. The open Internet issue is about freedom, control and independence over the Internet. Net neutrality in this context is the principal that all data traveling over the Internet should be treated the same. You cannot speed up access to some sites. You cannot block certain sites entirely. You cannot slow down access to other sites,” she said.

Clyburn is 99.9 percent positive that the ruling will be challenged in court, but she is confident the ruling has a good chance of standing up in court. “What we did on Thursday has the strongest legal standard for us to hang our hat on. We used every tool in our legal arsenal to say here is the strongest approach. We are going to give the protections needed both for consumers and industry,” she said.

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