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Network Neutrality

User Centric Internet

Network Neutrality

What is Network Neutrality? (Some definitions, from among many)

Network neutrality is simple. It is simply content and application agnosticism.[1]
Net neutrality means simply that all like Internet content must be treated alike and move at the same speed over the network. The owners of the Internet's wires cannot discriminate. This is the simple but brilliant "end-to-end" design of the Internet that has made it such a powerful force for economic and social good: All of the intelligence and control is held by producers and users, not the networks that connect them." [2]
Network neutrality relates to the various kinds of distortions that analog and digital networks of any kind impose on the traffic they carry, either due to design, to management practices, or to meet business objectives. [3]

Chapter News

ISOC New-York submits comments to FTC Broadband Workshop on Net Neutrality

Not just a US issue

Network Neutrality is an idea that takes many forms, has many different meanings (making it, some would argue, almost meaningless) and presents an alliterative "bumper sticker" message that masks an incredibly complex debate that occurs to a greater or lesser degree, under different monikers, across the globe.

The issue has been brought to the fore in the United States through the threat of a tiered Internet that could extract additional revenue from content providers and limit the "open" Internet access that most enjoy today.

The debate takes on different hues in different parts of the world, but whether one is talking about DT's future fiber investment, or preventing access to VoIP services in Canada or to competing VoIP services in Sweden, etc., clearly there are significant, largely business-related, pressures on the "open" Internet model as we know it.

State of play

In the United States, the debate has reached the Senate after an amendment to implement Network Neutrality rules was defeated in the House of Representatives. Broadly, content providers and consumer interest groups are in one corner, promoting Network Neutrality rules, ISPs and telcos in another, trying to prevent Network Neutrality rules, and equipment manufacturers in a third, taking a "hands-off" approach that appears largely aligned with the telco position.

To date the debate has largely been, characterized as either completely for or completely against the Internet on all sides, with little attempt to see beyond the rhetoric. Recently a "third way" is emerging that, inter alia, sees an open Internet that runs alongside non-discriminatory tiered services, along with incentives to build additional infrastructure.

The claims and positions of the players

The guiding principles of the Internet and the ability to innovate are under threat

Pro-Network Neutrality camp (typically characterized as Google, e-Bay and Amazon.com and a range of consumer organizations, etc.) suggests that, given Telco/ISP statements on a tiered Internet, the underlying principles of the Internet, and particularly its agnostic, neutral and end-to-end nature, so essential to user access and innovation, are under threat.

Network Neutrality threatens business opportunity and innovation

The anti-Network Neutrality camp (Verizon, SBC, AT&T, etc., and to a lesser degree the equipment manufacturers) suggests that the imposition of Network Neutrality rules is unnecessary, pre-judges market evolution, and compromises the ability of players to innovate, to provide new services to users, and to invest, etc.

Network Neutrality rules are premature

A position taken by a number of commentators (and the anti-Network Neutrality camp) that suggests that there is insufficient evidence of abuse to warrant Network Neutrality rules and that market forces dictate that those that discriminate will see their market share suffer, etc.

The motivations or looking beyond the bumper stickers

Looking beyond the sound bites and the positioning on all sides, some suggest that there are commonalities, particularly as relates to the motivations.

These commentators suggest that what is at stake are existing and future business models, and business opportunity. The ubiquity and indispensability of the Internet have made it no different, in a commercial sense, from any other means of reaching customers. One of the consequences of the Internet's success is the desire to exploit it, in market fashion, for business and competitive advantage.

Each side in this debate likely has something to lose and to gain from the imposition of Network Neutrality rules.

From their imposition content providers could probably avoid having to pay extra for the carriage of certain types of content; and, service providers would be left to manage an increasingly commoditized low to middle-band business and continue to lose to cable in the provision of premium content business.

Without Network Neutrality rules the market cap and business models of content businesses would come under pressure due to extra costs; the service providers would find new flexibility in their offerings, charge for "high-value" services; and, equipment providers would see the market for routing and switching for secure, tiered networks blossom.

Network issues

There are some network related claims that need also to be taken into consideration.

For example, the anti-Network Neutrality camp argue that the Internet model in existence today is under strain for a number of reasons, not least of which is the ever increasing use of bandwidth and bandwidth hungry, latency intolerant and service sensitive applications and content "best effort" is just not good enough. New investment in infrastructure (assuming a tiered services model to recoup costs) would resolve this issue.

Others suggest that the issue of Network Neutrality would be a non-issue if the network were not bottleneck ridden, either at the point of the end user or elsewhere in the network, and there was adequate competition, certainly in the access piece or last mile. Commentators suggest that additional spectrum, incentives to build, unbundling and municipal build are possible ways of increasing competition so that user choice is such that market forces would determine success and the need for further rules of regulation would become unnecessary.

Some see this as an extension of the age-old (in Internet time) Internet vs. telco model debate, with the current "best effort" (Internet) model, with its associated openness and freedom, on the one hand, and the closed "managed network" (telco) model, on the other.

Essential reading:

The following characterise differing views on Network Neutrality:

Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google statement before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Hearing on Network Neutrality (PDF).

Christopher Yoo, Professor, Vanderbilt Law School: Promoting Broadband through Network Diversity (PDF).

Rob Atkinson and Phil Weiser: A Third Way on Network Neutrality (PDF)