WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — A new study claims massive Internet providers such as AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon are purposefully slowing data from popular websites to thousands of businesses and residential users across the country. 
 
 A study from Internet activists, BattlefortheNet, analyzed data from 300,000 Internet users and found the five largest Internet service providers (ISPs) have significantly degraded data speed, The Guardian reports. The purposeful internet service slow-down from the country’s largest internet provider companies affects 75 percent of all wireline households throughout the U.S. 
 
 The BattlefortheNet findings comes just weeks after the Federal Communications Commission introduced new rules meant to protect “net neutrality,” or the concept that all data on the Internet is equal. The rules are intended to keep ISPs such as AT&T, Time Warner, Verizon and Comcast from holding consumers’ traffic speeds for ransom. The country’s largest ISP companies urged the FCC to ignore consumer outcry and not view their networks as public utilities. 
 
 Last September, BattlefortheNet succeeded in overwhelming the federal government with millions of public comments demanding the FCC scrap its proposed rules for net neutrality and write new ones. Their day-long battle managed to send 1,000 calls per minute to members of Congress. 
 
 AT&T has continued to fight regulations of its services, calling them “unprecedented” and “unjustified” rules hurting their business. 
 
 Tim Karr of Free Press, one of many groups composing BattlefortheNet, said the study reflects that ISPs are continuing to refuse content to users at the speed for which they are paying. 
 
 “For too long, internet access providers and their lobbyists have characterized net neutrality protections as a solution in search of a problem,” Karr told The Guardian. “Data compiled using the Internet Health Test show us otherwise – that there is widespread and systemic abuse across the network. The irony is that this trove of evidence is becoming public just as many in Congress are trying to strip away the open internet protections that would prevent such bad behavior.” 
 
 One example provided by The Guardian from Atlanta shows Comcast “provided hourly median download speeds over a CDN called GTT of 21.4 megabits per second at 7pm throughout the month of May. AT&T provided speeds over the same network of ⅕ of a megabit per second.” 
 
 FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has been aggressive in his agreement that the large ISP companies must face regulation to protect consumers. 
 
 “History proves that absent competition a predominant position in the market such as yours creates economic incentives to use that market power to protect your traditional business in a way that is ultimately harmful to consumers,” he told industry leaders at the Internet and Television Expo last month. ||||| America 
 
 Reports: FCC Poised For Changes To Net Neutrality Policy 
 
 This post was updated at 12:10 a.m. ET on Thursday. See update below for details. 
 
 The Federal Communications Commission is getting ready to propose new rules when it comes to net neutrality, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are reporting based on unnamed sources. 
 
 Late Wednesday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the reports of a turnaround "flat out wrong." 
 
 According to the Times and the Journal, the FCC is planning to allow Internet service providers to sell a faster pipe into people's homes to content companies willing to pay for it. In other words, content providers could pay for preferential treatment into American homes. 
 
 The Times describes the concept of net neutrality as "the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers." The paper adds: 
 
 "The F.C.C.'s previous rules governing net neutrality were thrown out by a federal appeals court this year. The court said those rules had essentially treated Internet service providers as public utilities, which violated a previous F.C.C. ruling that Internet links were not to be governed by the same strict regulation as telephone or electric service. "The new rules, according to the people briefed on them, will allow a company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content company — like Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google — and charge different companies different amounts for priority service." 
 
 The Wall Street Journal reports that once the companies have come to an agreement, the FCC would be the one to decide whether "the terms are commercially reasonable." 
 
 The Journal adds: 
 
 "The FCC's proposal would allow some forms of discrimination while preventing companies from slowing down or blocking specific websites, which likely won't satisfy all proponents of net neutrality, the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. The Commission has also decided for now against reclassifying broadband as a public utility, which would subject ISPs to much greater regulation. However, the Commission has left the reclassification option on the table at present." 
 
 Free Press, which advocates for an Internet in which all traffic is treated equally, said in a statement that the FCC proposal would break the Internet. 
 
 "With this proposal, the FCC is aiding and abetting the largest ISPs in their efforts to destroy the open Internet," Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron said. "Giving ISPs the green light to implement pay-for-priority schemes will be a disaster for startups, nonprofits and everyday Internet users who cannot afford these unnecessary tolls." 
 
 Update at 12:10 a.m. ET on Thursday. Responding To Chairman's Statement: 
 
 In an earlier version of its report, The New York Times referred to the FCC policy proposal as a "complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality." We quoted this, and other parts of the paper's report, which have now been rewritten. 
 
 Late Wednesday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said, "There is no 'turnaround in policy.' " We have updated this post to reflect these developments. ||||| Major internet providers, including AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon, are slowing data from popular websites to thousands of US businesses and residential customers in dozens of cities across the country, according to a study released on Monday. 
 
 
 
 The study, conducted by internet activists BattlefortheNet, looked at the results from 300,000 internet users and found significant degradations on the networks of the five largest internet service providers (ISPs), representing 75% of all wireline households across the US. 
 
 The findings come weeks after the Federal Communications Commission introduced new rules meant to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all data is equal online – and keep ISPs from holding traffic speeds for ransom. 
 
 Tim Karr of Free Press, one of the groups that makes up BattlefortheNet, said the finding show ISPs are not providing content to users at the speeds they’re paying for. 
 
 “For too long, internet access providers and their lobbyists have characterized net neutrality protections as a solution in search of a problem,” said Karr. “Data compiled using the Internet Health Test show us otherwise – that there is widespread and systemic abuse across the network. The irony is that this trove of evidence is becoming public just as many in Congress are trying to strip away the open internet protections that would prevent such bad behavior.” 
 
 The study, supported by the technologists at Open Technology Institute’s M-Lab, examines the comparative speeds of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which shoulder some of the data load for popular websites. Any site that becomes popular enough has to pay a CDN to carry its content on a network of servers around the country (or the world) so that the material is close to the people who want to access it. 
 
 In Atlanta, for example, Comcast provided hourly median download speeds over a CDN called GTT of 21.4 megabits per second at 7pm throughout the month of May. AT&T provided speeds over the same network of ⅕ of a megabit per second. When a network sends more than twice the traffic it receives, that network is required by AT&T to pay for the privilege. When quizzed about slow speeds on GTT, AT&T told Ars Technica earlier this year that it wouldn’t upgrade capacity to a CDN that saw that much outgoing traffic until it saw some money from that network (as distinct from the money it sees from consumers). 
 
 AT&T has strongly opposed regulation of its agreements with the companies that directly provide connectivity between high-traffic internet users and their customers. Cogent, Level3 and others have petitioned the FCC to make free interconnection to CDNs a part of the conditions for the proposed merger between AT&T and DirecTV. 
 
 “It would be unprecedented and unjustified to force AT&T to provide free backbone services to other backbone carriers and edge providers, as Cogent et al seek,” said the company in a filing replying to the CDNs’ suggestion, part of a brief opposing the merger. “Nor is there any basis for requiring AT&T to augment network capacity for free and without any limits. Opponents’ proposals would shift the costs of their services onto all AT&T subscribers, many of whom do not use Opponents’ services, and would harm consumers.” 
 
 FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has taken an aggressive regulatory tack when it comes to mergers in the telecommunications sector. “History proves that absent competition a predominant position in the market such as yours creates economic incentives to use that market power to protect your traditional business in a way that is ultimately harmful to consumers,” he told industry leaders at the Internet and Television Expo last month. 
 
 The dispute over traffic speeds comes as the telecoms and cable industry readies legal challenges to the net neutrality rules. Most telecoms are content letting their lobbyists, notably trade associations Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) and USTelecom, sue the FCC over net neutrality rules, but AT&T has been one of the few companies to sue the FCC directly.
– Thanks to new FCC rules put out this year to ensure net neutrality and keep all online data equal, major Internet service providers (think Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner) aren't supposed to hold our Internet speeds hostage. But that's exactly what's happening, per a study by an Internet activist group, causing a hefty slowdown to 75% of wireline businesses and residences, the Guardian reports. Battle for the Net's study, which checked out results from 300,000 Internet users, found what the paper calls "significant degradations" on the networks of the five largest ISPs, which means we're paying for traffic speed we're just not getting. "There is widespread and systemic abuse across the network," says a rep from one of the groups that comprises Battle for the Net. The ISPs are already being forced to react to these net neutrality rules: AT&T was hit with a $100 million fine last week for slowing down Internet speeds of customers with supposedly unlimited data plans, per the Washington Post, while Sprint cut out its "data-throttling" procedure of slowing down speeds of customers also believed to be using an excessive amount of data, CNET notes. But the ISPs don't think they should be regulated as public utilities are, which is effectively what the FCC decided back in February, and AT&T in particular is fighting back against the "unprecedented" and "unjustified" rules it says is damaging its business, CBS Washington reports. ("Radical" changes are needed to fix our antiquated Internet, a Gizmodo writer says.)