WASHINGTON, D.C— Today is the Net Neutrality Day of Action, with companies across the country taking a stand against FCC Chairman Aji Pai's efforts to unravel net neutrality protections and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has expressed her vigorous opposition in a letter to FCC Chairman Pai about his current proposal. Her letter references the views of several CEOs of startups who met with her at a recent roundtable in her Silicon Valley District. Eshoo emphasizes the critical need to consider the economic impacts that a repeal of the current net neutrality protections would have on startups and small businesses.

"[…] the last few years have shown that Title II protections have enabled innovation and investment across the Internet ecosystem. The current rules are working well, and appropriately balance the needs of startups, small businesses, consumers, and ISPs," Congresswoman Eshoo wrote. "Chris Riley, the Public Policy Director at Mozilla, stated it perfectly at our meeting when he referred to this debate as ‘reality versus illusion.' While strong and enforceable net neutrality rules are widely supported and Internet quality continues to improve, large ISPs are nevertheless leading the effort to eliminate protections that have been proven to be essential for startups and small businesses."

Participants in Eshoo's roundtable stressed that eliminating net neutrality protections will chill investment in one of the most dynamic sectors of our national economy. Several CEOs spoke about the damages that an elimination of the protections will have on startups and on consumers. Consumers must be protected from ISPs who are attempting to "cableize" the internet and drive up costs for better internet service.

On March 7th FCC Chairman Ajit Pai began the process of overturning net neutrality, demonstrating that he is on the wrong side of history, consumers and the public interest. Pai intends to remove rules that advance competition, innovation, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The full text of the letter can be found here.