Chances are you have never heard of net neutrality, a concept that has polarized Americans over the last few months.
Net neutrality is the principle that network operators should treat all traffic on their networks equally, move all traffic on their networks at the same speed, and not discriminate among content or service providers.
In simple terms, it implies that network operators – corporations such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon – who own the network infrastructure and the wires that carry Internet traffic, should charge uniform rates for all Internet traffic. They may not throttle, or decline to carry their competitor’s traffic. They may not charge Vonage a higher rate for carrying its traffic than they charge Google, simply because Vonage’s traffic consists mainly of voice as opposed to Google’s traffic, which is mainly data. They may not introduce latency in Vonage’s traffic because Vonage is their direct competitor in voice telephony. They may not accelerate Google’s traffic at the expense of my web site’s traffic, simply because Google may be willing to pay more for the bandwidth than I am.
The principle of neutrality is not new. It is the basis for the Common Carrier laws governing telecommunication for decades. Without neutrality, it would have been impossible for a customer of one telephone company to call a customer of a rival telephone company. Since its inception, the Intenet has worked the same way – you can access Yahoo’s site even if Yahoo and you subscribe to rival Internet service providers.
Everybody has been perfectly content with the how the Internet works – everybody except the network operators, that is. The operators have invested billions of dollars in laying cables all across the country and building the Internet super-highway. To recoup their investments, they want the ability to decide price for transporting data packets over their wires. They cite examples of price dichotomy from the brick-and-mortar world. Commercial airlines serve coach class passengers just peanuts and soda, but pamper first class passengers with a four course meal and free liquor. Couriers charge more for next day delivery than what they charge for ground shipping. Cyberspace is no different. Google displays links to paying customer’s web sites above links to non-paying web sites. By the same token, ask the network operators, why should Verizon not give preferential treatment to the traffic of customers who are willing to pay more? Why can AT&T not throttle Vonage’s traffic if Vonage does not agree to pay a price that AT&T thinks is fair? Why should the likes of Google and Yahoo not pay for the content they are sending across the network?
After considerable lobbying from the networks operators, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a policy resolution in August 2005 that exempted information services from the common carrier law. In effect, the new policy gave network operators potential control over pricing Internet traffic passing through their pipes. Like any change to status quo, the new policy caused uproar. Proponents of net neutrality denounced it as a setback to equal opportunity and freedom of speech; opponents hailed it as a victory for free market capitalism. Both camps took pot shots at one another, accused each other of myopia, and each predicted doom if the other camp prevailed.
The change has not gone down well with corporations, such as Google, Ebay, Vonage, and Amazon.com. They now face a distinct possibility of coughing up outrageous fees to the network operators. So concerned are the corporations that they have taken the unusual step of taking their grievance to the public. Meg Whitman, eBay’s CEO, sent out a million e-mails to drum up support for net neutrality and Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO published this letter asking the public to “take action”.
The corporations argue that if Google has to pay Verizon a fee for every search a consumer makes, Google can only absorb the expense to a point and will ultimately be forced to pass it on to consumers. They warn that once the Internet has toll lanes, the operators may not be content charging just corporations; they could charge consumers as well. Internet access subscriptions could become like cable TV subscriptions. Just as your cable operator provides basic cable for $9.95 a month but charges you a premium for HBO, your ISP could come up with plans that provided “basic” Internet access for $14.95 a month. You would then have to add on unlimited buying at Amazon.com for another $2.95 a month, or unlimited Google searching for $4.95 a month.
Most people find the idea of paying for a Google search preposterous. Naturally, consumer organizations have weighed in with the likes of Google and eBay in support of net neutrality. They are afraid that once a content provider subscribes to the toll lanes, its competitors would be forced to follow suit, which would result in higher overall prices for consumers.
Pro-democracy groups have come out swinging in favor of net neutrality too. They argue that the new law will give the network operators total control over content dissemination – network operators could block your blog out, for example, if you wrote nasty things about them. Worse, they could promote the cause of one political party above the other.
Academics and researchers are concerned that the amendment would stifle innovation because new ideas and innovations would have to compete with the financial might of existing businesses – there would be no new Googles and eBays.
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