[takeda]

I think you're confused. The old law that we had that already forbade prioritization was the Title II, and that's what Wheeler classified Internet as. Pai basically reversed that decision, so it was a step backward.

Wheeler when he classified Internet as Title II, made exclusion that ISPs that currently have infrastructure are not required (under Title II they are) to lease it to competitors. We don't need 10 different fiber wires coming to our house, since most likely we will only use one, all we need is to be able to chose between ISPs and that ISP can reuse existing infrastructure, kind of like it was with selecting long distance call provider on land lines, or ISP on DSL (which was automatically under Title II already, do you remember how much competition was back then? if you had phone line from PacBell, you didn't have to have internet from them, we had sites like dslreports where people could compare and chose the best one).

What residential Internet needs, is separation of the last mile with the ISP (kind of like it is in data centers, you have separate company that maintains all wiring and separate company that provides service).

Since neither FCC chairman wanted this simple solution to enable competition once again. We need consumer protection, and this comes down to net neutrality. NN forbids ISPs from interfering with the service, that's it, the California law basically reinstated those protections. We desperately need them because the "propaganda" is not far from the truth. Just look at the latest acquisitions. Comcast now owns all content from NBC Universal, AT&T owns all content from TimeWarner. Why would ISPs enter this market if they wouldn't see some benefits of their current position. Now they are already bundling those services together, and with lack of net neutrality they can prioritize their content over others. Why did we even allowed to get to this point?

[maxk42]

> NN forbids ISPs from interfering with the service, that's it

Again - that would have been great if it were what the ruling actually did. It's not.

[takeda]

The ruling was because around 2002-2003[1] Internet was reclassified as Title I (Information Services). Since then ISPs started doing shenanigans, like throttling and in some cases outright blocking (first major attack was VoIP). Each time, it happened FCC stepped in, fined them, the company paid the fines and stopped doing what they were doing.

Around 2014 (IIRC) Verizon, sued FCC saying that they have no right of controlling ISPs and court ruled that Verizon was right. That ruling basically removed FCC right to control the Internet, but it hinted that they can reclassify it.

Immediately petitions and protests started asking FCC to reclassify Internet back to Title II (communication service[2]).

Obama sided with population, and Wheeler reclassified internet to Title II in 2015 (with some exemptions, like the requirement to lease infrastructure). After Trump wins he immediately started dismantling everything Obama did, which included the reclassification back to Title I (which according to the ruling FCC has no control anymore).

So as you see the ruling wasn't about NN but about whether FCC has control over service classified under Title I (information services). It has nothing about Title II (communication services).

[1] You might also notice that ISPs (which was a lot of them in late 1990 and early 2000), started disappearing around that time

[2] Despite the misinformation, Internet started as Title II, since it was initially provided by telcos, which were under Title II. Unlike today, back then we had large choice of ISPs o chose from since Title II required leasing lines to competitors.