Washington State Passes Country’s Toughest Net Neutrality Legislation

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Washington State Passes Country’s Toughest Net Neutrality Legislation

By CircleID Reporter
March 01, 2018, 3:38 pm PST Views: 10,601 Comments: 1

Washington may be the first state to approve a net neutrality law that applies to all wired and wireless Internet providers in the state. While other states such as Montana, New Jersey, and Vermont have also issued executive orders or proposed legislation, Washington’s policy is the most ambitious. The Washington bill applies to all ISPs and prohibits blocking of “lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.” It further states that ISPs may not impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of internet content, application, or service, or use of a nonharmful device, subject to reasonable network management nor may ISPs engage in paid prioritization. Jon Brodkin reporting in Ars Technica writes: “Washington is likely to face lawsuits filed by broadband providers, who will argue that the state law is preempted by the FCC repeal of net neutrality rules. The FCC itself said that states are preempted from passing net neutrality rules, but legal experts have mixed opinions on whether that preemption will hold up in court.”

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By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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What about those on the same ISP? Phil Howard – Mar 3, 2018 2:38 AM

suppose i use ISP XYZ. now suppose i visit a web site hosted by ISP XYZ? is that allowed to be be faster as a result of the fewer hops, shorter distances, and all the intermediate links being extremely high speed links connected on extremely high speed routers (e.g ISP XYZ’s core network)?

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