Bill introduced in the US Senate to nullify net neutrality rules

Nine Republican senators in the US Congress had introduced a bill aimed at nullifying the net neutrality order adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2015, and at prohibiting the FCC for issuing a similar order in the future. In the initiators’ view, the bill, titled ‘Restoring Internet Freedom Act’, would ‘help ensure that the Internet remains open and free of heavy-handed federal regulations’, and ‘is a step in the right direction as Congress works to ensure Internet regulation does not stifle innovation’. The proposed legislation would ‘prohibit the FCC from reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service and from imposing certain regulations on providers of such services’. The bill is in line with the proposal put forward by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai which would overturn the classification of broadband providers as utility carriers.