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Not surprisingly, the Internet--especially the blogosphere--is full of discussions on the fracas. Google the term "Net neutrality" and you'll get something on the order of 21 million entries. Include "blog" in the search request and nearly 6 million entries come back.
With all this back and forth, it's too bad so much of the discourse is uninformed and misleading. As I have explained here before, imposing broad regulatory mandates on broadband Internet service providers as urged by the Net neutrality advocates is a bad idea that will ultimately harm consumers. Rendering broadband providers perfectly neutral by dictating that they be nothing more than dumb pipes, unable to treat any applications or content that use their network facilities in any way differently, would, in fact, neuter the Net.
The nub of the issue is not that complicated. Let me explain.
Broadband Internet access is not currently subject to the type of public utility regulation which, for most of the 20th century, characterized the old Ma Bell and its offspring. Because telephone companies were classified as traditional common carriers, their rates and terms of service were regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. This was appropriate in a narrowband era when the telephone service providers faced minimal or no competition.
But the Internet access marketplace in the broadband era is much different. It's been four years since the FCC determined that the broadband market is sufficiently competitive that it should not be subject to public utility-style regulatory mandates. That's why it is misleading for Net neutrality proponents to sloganeer that neutrality mandates need to be imposed to "save the Internet as we know it." Presently, absent such regulatory intervention, the number and variety of services and applications available on the Net grow exponentially each week.
Indeed, although overlooked by most observers, a full decade ago in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress explicitly stated: "It is the policy of the United States to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by federal or state regulation."
Without doubt, the broadband Internet access market is even more competitive today than when the FCC and Congress issued these pronouncements. Granted, the market may not replicate the classical model of perfect competition--say, the wheat market taught in Economics 101 texts. Few markets do, and certainly no "network" industry requiring huge infrastructure investments running in the billions of dollars ever will. Today, the cable and telephone companies still have dominant market positions. But wireless and satellite companies continue to become stronger competitors. And large electric power companies lurk on the sidelines exerting competitive pressure, already testing delivery of broadband over powerlines.
In this increasingly competitive and technological dynamic marketplace, pleas from Net giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for imposition of strict nondiscrimination obligations and rate regulation of facilities owners are particularly misplaced. Most of the proposals purport to prohibit any network operator from taking any action to "block, impair or degrade" consumers from reaching any lawful Web site. Yet there are no instances today in which consumers are complaining about being blocked from accessing a Web site, and it is difficult to imagine any service provider blocking access to a lawful site. The marketplace reaction likely would be swift and adverse.
As for the "impairing" and "degrading" strictures, there are two very important problems with prohibitions cast this way. First, there will be years of costly litigation over the meaning of these inherently plastic terms as myriad claims of alleged violations are adjudicated and readjudicated as services are rejiggered to try to pass regulatory muster. Second, and more fundamentally, the notion that network facilities owners must treat all applications and content providers alike--that is, neutrally--is at odds with the way we want a competitive marketplace to function. It is through the trial-and-error process of differentiation in the marketplace that new products and services valued by consumers are developed. Take away the freedom to differentiate and the basis for effective competition is undermined.
Strict Net neutrality mandates also mean ordinary Internet users must pay equally for the increased investment required to support some very resource-intensive activities, such as downloading movies or gaming. In effect, this is akin to imposing a retrogressive tax on those less resource-intensive consumers to subsidize sites, such as Google and Yahoo, which are responsible for generating the increased investment necessary to support high-traffic, high-capacity applications.
At bottom, in a world of mandated neutrality, the uncertainty and expense of ongoing litigation, coupled with the inability of network operators to enter into business arrangements that enhance demand by differentiating their offerings, will stifle innovation and investment. The Net will be neutered at the same time it is rendered neutral.
In that vein, henceforth, I suggest use of the term "Net Neut*" in the ongoing debate. That way, at least, the superficial appeal of the "neutrality" label will not be hijacked in the service of imposing a new regulatory regime likely to stall continued development of the Internet for years to come.
Biography
Randolph J. May is president of the Free State Foundation, a Maryland-based think tank. The views expressed here are his own.
See more CNET content tagged:
Net Neutrality, broadband Internet, narrowband, mandate, broadband
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There are few players who can handle bandwidth from the likes of google, MS, yahoo, etc. If they put it in place it doesn't matter if my end has it or not.
There are few players who can handle bandwidth from the likes of google, MS, yahoo, etc. If they put it in place it doesn't matter if my end has it or not.
Under neutrality legislation, it would actually be illegal to experiment and differentiate on the network. If everything is a dumb pipe, the only competition is in volume and price. Guess who wins the battle of scale? Hint: the big guys.
We need to keep all technological options on the table. Congress has no idea how the Internet should operate, so let's not give them the power.
Under neutrality legislation, it would actually be illegal to experiment and differentiate on the network. If everything is a dumb pipe, the only competition is in volume and price. Guess who wins the battle of scale? Hint: the big guys.
We need to keep all technological options on the table. Congress has no idea how the Internet should operate, so let's not give them the power.
Internet itself, and HTML - and consider how many of them
evolved out of the wonders of private companies and
competition. That would be none - all of them came from
government funded research programs.
I'd also put more worth on the words of Tim Berners-Lee than
the head of any ISP or Telco. In fact, from my perspective, the
TelCo's did everything they could to hold back the development
of the net. (In the UK, for instance, it took a small private
company to launch the first consumer ISP while the TelCo's tried
to keep people in their own DSL networks).
Internet itself, and HTML - and consider how many of them
evolved out of the wonders of private companies and
competition. That would be none - all of them came from
government funded research programs.
I'd also put more worth on the words of Tim Berners-Lee than
the head of any ISP or Telco. In fact, from my perspective, the
TelCo's did everything they could to hold back the development
of the net. (In the UK, for instance, it took a small private
company to launch the first consumer ISP while the TelCo's tried
to keep people in their own DSL networks).
Not to mention, his idea that ordinary users will have to subsidize the high bandwidth users is nonsense. Google pays tens of thousands of dollars per month for its connectivity all over the world. Microsoft, Yahoo, all do the same.
Do not fall for this, please.
Not to mention, his idea that ordinary users will have to subsidize the high bandwidth users is nonsense. Google pays tens of thousands of dollars per month for its connectivity all over the world. Microsoft, Yahoo, all do the same.
Do not fall for this, please.
I guarantee if you could choose from 4 or 5 broadband providers NO ONE would ever suggest such blatant thievery.
Remind your local Senator or Congressman that Lobbiests might give you money, but they also cost you votes, and come November, hold them accountable to how they handled this.
I guarantee if you could choose from 4 or 5 broadband providers NO ONE would ever suggest such blatant thievery.
Remind your local Senator or Congressman that Lobbiests might give you money, but they also cost you votes, and come November, hold them accountable to how they handled this.
We appreciate you are trying to present both sides of the "debate". However I would like to take this opportunity to remind you who your readers are.
We are pretty intelligent (or so I like to think) Technology oriented people, so when a corporate lobby wants to pay you to let them write an article (which I full support cause it keeps you online) At least make them admit who they are, who they are working for, maybe something like the little blurb at the beging of an infomercial. (this is paid programing...yada yada yada)
I am not for silencing them, meaningful dialogue is great, but lets put everything out on the table so as not to insult your readers.
If anything, CNET would *benefit* at least in the short term from Net neutrality as would other Internet media companies, so I'm not sure why you think we're somehow shilling for the other side. Rather, publishing a variety of opinions is testament to the independence and credibility of News.com.
You can see the rest of our coverage here:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://search.news.com/search?q=net+neutrality" target="_newWindow">http://search.news.com/search?q=net+neutrality</a>
And yes, if Google's CEO or Yahoo's CEO wants to give us an op-ed on Net neutrality, we'll publish it too.
We appreciate you are trying to present both sides of the "debate". However I would like to take this opportunity to remind you who your readers are.
We are pretty intelligent (or so I like to think) Technology oriented people, so when a corporate lobby wants to pay you to let them write an article (which I full support cause it keeps you online) At least make them admit who they are, who they are working for, maybe something like the little blurb at the beging of an infomercial. (this is paid programing...yada yada yada)
I am not for silencing them, meaningful dialogue is great, but lets put everything out on the table so as not to insult your readers.
If anything, CNET would *benefit* at least in the short term from Net neutrality as would other Internet media companies, so I'm not sure why you think we're somehow shilling for the other side. Rather, publishing a variety of opinions is testament to the independence and credibility of News.com.
You can see the rest of our coverage here:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://search.news.com/search?q=net+neutrality" target="_newWindow">http://search.news.com/search?q=net+neutrality</a>
And yes, if Google's CEO or Yahoo's CEO wants to give us an op-ed on Net neutrality, we'll publish it too.
Sorry also that you don't care to argue the merits.
Sorry also that you don't care to argue the merits.
from taking any action to 'block, impair or degrade' consumers
from reaching any lawful Web site. Yet there are no instances
today in which consumers are complaining about being blocked
from accessing a Web site, and it is difficult to imagine any
service provider blocking access to a lawful site."
What about the instance reported last year about a Canadian
telco company? (Where these kinds of regulations were voted
down) Here's the article:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2005/07/24/telus-" target="_newWindow">http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2005/07/24/telus-</a>
sites050724.html
Basically, a telco company was fighting some striking union
workers, and *BLOCKED ACCESS* to the strikers' web site. No,
there aren't any examples I know of "today", but then... we
haven't passed the law that the net neutrality laws are fighting
against, either.
Unless you can produce an example of a US carrier blocking access, I'd say your example is irrelevant to the US debate.
from taking any action to 'block, impair or degrade' consumers
from reaching any lawful Web site. Yet there are no instances
today in which consumers are complaining about being blocked
from accessing a Web site, and it is difficult to imagine any
service provider blocking access to a lawful site."
What about the instance reported last year about a Canadian
telco company? (Where these kinds of regulations were voted
down) Here's the article:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2005/07/24/telus-" target="_newWindow">http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2005/07/24/telus-</a>
sites050724.html
Basically, a telco company was fighting some striking union
workers, and *BLOCKED ACCESS* to the strikers' web site. No,
there aren't any examples I know of "today", but then... we
haven't passed the law that the net neutrality laws are fighting
against, either.
Unless you can produce an example of a US carrier blocking access, I'd say your example is irrelevant to the US debate.
What the telcos/pipe owners are telling the content providers is "if you have content that is needs to be delivered fast to the customer, then we can route it down these superfast pipes that we have built at our expense for an extra fee. We'll insure that it has priority handling through the network so that your customer that is paying for this premium content will have an enjoyable experience. If you don't want to pay the extra then it will go down the broadband pipe with everything else. If there is lots of congestion then it may not arrive at your customers properly and the experience fromtheir point of view will not be what they are apying for."
This seems pretty reasonable. The Telcos do not have to do this and thus could treat all traffic the same and route everything through the usual pipes and let traffice pileup and slow down without regard to the content. Frankly, if I'm paying extra to stream some content, then I would hope that the content providers would do what's necessary to insure that it doesn arrive the way its intended.
From my point of view, Google and Yahoo and their ilk are looking to keep their costs down and transfer most of them to the customer.
So my tax dollars built these superfast pipes, not telco money. If you are paying extra, then they should have the bandwidth to deliver. They have built and sold a system that can not handle what we are paying for. BTW I am paying for the experience to download content now.
You seem to be missing the issue, the primary reason they want to QoS the internet is so they can offer their own IPTV, VoIP, and other services cheaper than those already offering. AT&T can offer VoIP, and then limit Vonage and Skype, unless they pay an extra fee. Suddently Vonage is $39.99 to use and AT&T is $29.99, what are most people going to use?
"Sure we sold you 5MB of bandwidth, but we didn't think you would use it," does not seem to be my problem does it?
1. Telco spend money building pipes
2. Its ok to tier Video streaming for a cost
3. Yahoo and crew are trying to transfer the cost to the consumer
Yup Me thinks me smells another Telco Bandit. Why won't they just admit it?
Here is where you argument falls a part, I ALREADY PAY FOR BANDWIDTH!! Period. There IS NO BANDWIDTH SHORTAGE. Other than some of providers ungoddly over subscribtion rates.
THIS IS ALL ABOUT IP TV and streaming video, the telcos want to compete with the Cable companys but don't want competition from anyone else, lest they you pay their toll.
I am sorry but you will never convice the internet users this is a good thing. Just watch this legistation get passed cause people will hold their politicians accountable on this one.
What the telcos/pipe owners are telling the content providers is "if you have content that is needs to be delivered fast to the customer, then we can route it down these superfast pipes that we have built at our expense for an extra fee. We'll insure that it has priority handling through the network so that your customer that is paying for this premium content will have an enjoyable experience. If you don't want to pay the extra then it will go down the broadband pipe with everything else. If there is lots of congestion then it may not arrive at your customers properly and the experience fromtheir point of view will not be what they are apying for."
This seems pretty reasonable. The Telcos do not have to do this and thus could treat all traffic the same and route everything through the usual pipes and let traffice pileup and slow down without regard to the content. Frankly, if I'm paying extra to stream some content, then I would hope that the content providers would do what's necessary to insure that it doesn arrive the way its intended.
From my point of view, Google and Yahoo and their ilk are looking to keep their costs down and transfer most of them to the customer.
So my tax dollars built these superfast pipes, not telco money. If you are paying extra, then they should have the bandwidth to deliver. They have built and sold a system that can not handle what we are paying for. BTW I am paying for the experience to download content now.
You seem to be missing the issue, the primary reason they want to QoS the internet is so they can offer their own IPTV, VoIP, and other services cheaper than those already offering. AT&T can offer VoIP, and then limit Vonage and Skype, unless they pay an extra fee. Suddently Vonage is $39.99 to use and AT&T is $29.99, what are most people going to use?
"Sure we sold you 5MB of bandwidth, but we didn't think you would use it," does not seem to be my problem does it?
1. Telco spend money building pipes
2. Its ok to tier Video streaming for a cost
3. Yahoo and crew are trying to transfer the cost to the consumer
Yup Me thinks me smells another Telco Bandit. Why won't they just admit it?
Here is where you argument falls a part, I ALREADY PAY FOR BANDWIDTH!! Period. There IS NO BANDWIDTH SHORTAGE. Other than some of providers ungoddly over subscribtion rates.
THIS IS ALL ABOUT IP TV and streaming video, the telcos want to compete with the Cable companys but don't want competition from anyone else, lest they you pay their toll.
I am sorry but you will never convice the internet users this is a good thing. Just watch this legistation get passed cause people will hold their politicians accountable on this one.
* In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
* In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
* Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.
* In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
Go to <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.savetheinternet.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.savetheinternet.com</a> today. Take action. Don't let the carriers harm America's Internet leadership position (and, by extension, its national security) by falling for this unadulterated manure.
And it will also lead to more expensive prices for everything as those paying the infrastructure guys have to recoup their money. This will drive even more competition off the net and kill many online businesses and kill the infrastructure companies desire to improve thier infrastructure, because the use of the current infrastructure will be severely curtailed.
The other problem I have with this article and with the ideas propagated within it is that everyone is already paying for access. Most of the larger compainies like google, and ISPs, pay money to the telecoms for their t-1 and other leased types of lines to connect their servers to the telecoms network. And all users pay thier ISPs a fee to use the network, these money alone should be incentive alone.
If the Telecoms, cable companies and other vendors don't want to innovate because they feel that they are not getting a full value from their service, there will be companies coming from outside the country that will create that next level of service, for less and these companies will cease being a part of the equation.
The real tragedy of this is that you have greed creating rederick that will just provide cream on top of the telecom's already huge profits. And as long as they can make money by innovating they will, or else they risk loosing the business.
Congress, in the long run wants to have the latest and greatest for the US technology sector, so if the incumbent telecoms do not want to provide services, they will allow foreign competion to come in and take over, or overrule the FCC and BrandX Rulings to force the telecoms to share their current networks as new local companies upgrade services.
The telecoms don't want to see that either, so they have much incentive to innovate regardless of a decision on Net Nuetrality. Please validate this next statement, becuase I am taking it from memeory and I hope I do not have it backward about Net Nuetrality, but Europe, Japan, and South Korea already have continued Net Nuetrality and they all have superior network infrastructure and Internet use than we currently do as well as with Celluer Service.
* In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.
* In 2005, Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.
* Shaw, a major Canadian cable, internet, and telephone service company, intentionally downgrades the "quality and reliability" of competing Internet-phone services that their customers might choose -- driving customers to their own phone services not through better services, but by rigging the marketplace.
* In April, Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
Go to <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.savetheinternet.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.savetheinternet.com</a> today. Take action. Don't let the carriers harm America's Internet leadership position (and, by extension, its national security) by falling for this unadulterated manure.
And it will also lead to more expensive prices for everything as those paying the infrastructure guys have to recoup their money. This will drive even more competition off the net and kill many online businesses and kill the infrastructure companies desire to improve thier infrastructure, because the use of the current infrastructure will be severely curtailed.
The other problem I have with this article and with the ideas propagated within it is that everyone is already paying for access. Most of the larger compainies like google, and ISPs, pay money to the telecoms for their t-1 and other leased types of lines to connect their servers to the telecoms network. And all users pay thier ISPs a fee to use the network, these money alone should be incentive alone.
If the Telecoms, cable companies and other vendors don't want to innovate because they feel that they are not getting a full value from their service, there will be companies coming from outside the country that will create that next level of service, for less and these companies will cease being a part of the equation.
The real tragedy of this is that you have greed creating rederick that will just provide cream on top of the telecom's already huge profits. And as long as they can make money by innovating they will, or else they risk loosing the business.
Congress, in the long run wants to have the latest and greatest for the US technology sector, so if the incumbent telecoms do not want to provide services, they will allow foreign competion to come in and take over, or overrule the FCC and BrandX Rulings to force the telecoms to share their current networks as new local companies upgrade services.
The telecoms don't want to see that either, so they have much incentive to innovate regardless of a decision on Net Nuetrality. Please validate this next statement, becuase I am taking it from memeory and I hope I do not have it backward about Net Nuetrality, but Europe, Japan, and South Korea already have continued Net Nuetrality and they all have superior network infrastructure and Internet use than we currently do as well as with Celluer Service.
Well, let's see, what's the biggest barrier to pervasive broadband wireless (i.e. broadband competition)? Oh yeah, that's right, the FCC. Rules and regulations have sure helped there.
So we have analog TV, taxi drivers, and military comms hogging up huge swaths of spectrum while anyone trying to do a serious WiFi deployment has to dick around with a grand total of three non-overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz band.
Government is a successful religion. Some people never lose faith in the bureaucrat.
Well, let's see, what's the biggest barrier to pervasive broadband wireless (i.e. broadband competition)? Oh yeah, that's right, the FCC. Rules and regulations have sure helped there.
So we have analog TV, taxi drivers, and military comms hogging up huge swaths of spectrum while anyone trying to do a serious WiFi deployment has to dick around with a grand total of three non-overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz band.
Government is a successful religion. Some people never lose faith in the bureaucrat.
There are a good number instances where an ISP has blocked access to a perfectly legal website or service because it was simply not in it's own best interest.
The claim by ISPs that it would not be "fair" to allow competitor ISPs (startups, etc) to have equal access to these broadband pipes "because they built them and should not have any right to equally use something they do not own" is also an audacious claim (see also the 200 billion dollars of tax money from the government they used to build it all)
Regulation, to a degree, is a good thing. There are federal laws that prohibit monopolizing and unfair business practices, why not extend such laws and regulations on the flow of information?
It *should* be illegal for a Telco or Cable company to restrict or outright block information access at their own discretion. This is unfair business practice, and a method of creating a monopoly in the digital age.
But as it stands such practices are *not* illegal, and any backlash they get is merely from the public. If multi-billion dollar corporations are more willing to break the law because the fines are less than the costs of compliance, what on god's green earth would make a person believe that the public will have an effect directly? (this is in response to the post about balanced market)
There is also the red hot debate about VoIP, Digital Video, and a host of other services. If a company online, let's say YouTube.com is very popular and one day decides to offer movies for a price, without legislation in place, what will stop the Bells and Comcasts from deciding one day to block the competition?
Nothing. And this is the problem we are trying to correct. If somebody figures out a better way to do something than a major corporation, they should be allowed to reach the world via the Internet about it.
Without such regulation, it would be as if Microsoft, hearing about an amazing grass roots Operating System called Linux, decided to all but disconnect users within it's scope from ever seeing the site or downloading it.
Net Neutrality is just that. It sets in motion the regulation in the digital age to prevent monopolies of information traffic that would benefit the bottom line of Larger ISPs.
Without it, completely biased and unfair business practices will get worse. No regulation in this area is the same as giving Telcos and Cable Companies the "all clear" to continue with these actions in full force and with little or no backlash or penalties.
This article itself is rediculous, and I am completely in shock that a "news" site like C|Net would have the audacity to publish it without a moment of full disclosure (aka: this guy's clientel lineup includes Major ISPs, telcos, cable companies... all the companies that would benefit most to see this regulation shot down)
While allowing it to be published is fine, doing so without the disclosure to their audience is both in poor taste and constitutes horrible journalism, not to mention insults the intelligence of it's readers., (and to attempt to justify non disclosure of the background of the writer to the readers is simply immoral).
Telling only half the truth while omitting damaging information is the same as lying.