Net Neutrality is an issue that can sometimes bypass us in Europe and often seems like an argument being held in Washington, with a case study being played out in China. For us this debate should receive a little more airtime as the outcome will set out the fundamental governance rules of the internet.
So what is Net Neutrality? A classic definition is as follows: ‘Network neutrality is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the internet that advocates no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic.’
Or in other words….
If you have an internet connection from an ISP, Net Neutrality legislation would mean you could use it how you see fit. It means ISPs cannot block sites, content or applications based on the type of data that is flowing through their access network. You won’t have to pay lots extra for certain content or to access other company’s applications such as Google style over-the-top applications.
In the U.S. the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is in the process of pushing a Net Neutrality bill through Congress, although its success is by no means certain. This subject garners strong responses from both advocates and opponents.
In the red corner
The main opponents are the world’s telecoms operators and cable providers. They have a persuasive argument and in essence see Net Neutrality legislation as a solution looking for a problem. Operators invest large sums of money to develop the infrastructure that powers the internet but in today’s world their margins are continually shrinking, and only the savvy telcos are able to maintain the levels of profitability they are accustomed to.
At the same time companies are running applications over the operators’ networks and it’s these types of business that are now valued in the $10 billion range, e.g. Facebook. Who should shoulder the cost of the infrastructure is perhaps a wider debate but telcos want to be able to govern and control traffic running across their networks. Another powerful argument is that operators require the ability to analyse and control the flow of data in order to guarantee QoS (Quality of Service). In addition, ISPs want the ability to tier access in order for differentiation and marketing, which has been a traditional element of their business model.
In the blue corner
We have a raft of powerful next-generation businesses. The Silicon Valley start-ups and uncontested master of search (and pioneer of other innovations); Google. Peter Cochrane, ex-CTO at BT and founder of Cochrane Associates has made this case persuasively and Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the internet said this in 2006: "It's better and more efficient for us all if we have a separate market where we get our connectivity, and a separate market where we get our content. Information is what I use to make all my decisions. Not just what to buy, but how to vote…there is an effort by some companies in the U.S. to change this. There's an attempt to get to a situation where if I want to watch a TV station across the Internet, that TV station must have paid to transmit to me."
How will this mighty contest be decided? Well it’s still uncertain. The Obama administration’s FCC tabled its Net Neutrality bill before Congress in May 2009, although last week the FCC lost a major court case with Comcast. Comcast had suspended P2P traffic flowing across its network in 2008 blocking Bitorrent, but a Federal judge in the U.S. ruled in Comcast’s favour by finding that the FCC doesn’t have the required authority to overturn Comcast’s action.
In Europe the EU parliament recognised internet freedom as a basic human right (like freedom of expression or association) within a 2009 statute. Despite this we see moves by telecoms operators to effectively arm themselves; Virgin Media has launched trials of DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) recently. This means Virgin can analyse the data flowing through its network and identify P2P data (*I should clarify Virgin states this is to identify the scale of P2P traffic rather than to target individual file sharers).
As a heavy individual internet user I find myself drawn to support Net Neutrality in defense of the internet in its purest form. However, I also work with telecoms operators and the industry. These individuals work in some of the most competitive markets globally and their efforts have accelerated human development beyond all imagination. I’m afraid I’m firmly on the fence with this one.