FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality; Unfetters Local Broadband

FCC votes for net neutrality, a ban on paid fast lanes, and Title II. What can you do as an encore after that? Overturn state laws that protect ISPs from local competition. Then you drop the mic. Here's word on the net neutrality decision from FCC chairman Tom Wheeler:
The Internet is the most powerful and pervasive platform on the planet. It is simply too important to be left without rules and without a referee on the field. Think about it. The Internet has replaced the functions of the telephone and the post office. The Internet has redefined commerce, and as the outpouring from four million Americans has demonstrated, the Internet is the ultimate vehicle for free expression. The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.

This proposal has been described by one opponent as "a secret plan to regulate the Internet." Nonsense. This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concepts: openness, expression, and an absence of gate keepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think.