Communications: Net Neutrality Write Up

Q)I need information on Internet Neutrality ( Net Neutrality) covering not only the common sense aspects (why we should stop the gov) but how it will differently affect consumers and most importantly the WEB 2.0 generation of start-ups and openness ( open source applications, p2p sharing, social media/networks, etc.) and entertainment ( the surge of independent musicians and artists.)
Are there any big companies (preferably in communications or media) who are pushing the envelope and would ultimately benefit?

There should be a way to connect this to the concept of their becoming two internets, the paid and unpaid. 

Sol:

Net neutrality (also Network neutrality, Internet neutrality) is one of the principle proposed for all the users accessing networks and participating in the Internet that gives no restrictions by the ISP’s(Internet service providers) and also the governments on sites, contents and platforms, also the kinds of equipment that may be attached while sending to others, and the modes of communication involved.

Service providers argue that if net neutrality is not enforced, they will have sufficient incentives to build special high-quality channels that will take the Internet to the next level of its evolution. But if they do get their needy wish, net neutrality is then consigned to the only dustbin, and they do build the new services, but no one uses that. If the networks that are mostly built are the only ones that are publicly discussed, which is a likely prospect.

What will service providers publicly promise to do, when they are given with complete control of their own networks, is to build the special facilities for the streaming movies? But there are few fatal defects to the above promise. One is that movies are not likely to offer all that much income. The other is that delivering movies in real-time streaming audio/video is the one of the wrong solution, expensive and unnecessary.

If Internet service providers are to derive the most significant revenues and also the profits by exploiting the available freedom from the net neutrality limitations, then they will need to be engaged in much more.

Such calls for preemptive regulation are only unjustified. There is no evidence for those broadband operators who are unfairly blocking access to the websites or online services today, and there is no other reason to expect them to do so in the near future. No firm or corporate has any sort of bottleneck control over the market power in the speedy broadband marketplace; it is also very much a competitive free-for-all, and no one has any idea about what the future market will look like with so many new other technologies and operators also entering the picture. In the absence of the clear harm, government typically doesn’t regulate in the preemptive, prophylactic fashion as a CBUI members are requesting.

Moreover, from being something the regulators should forbid, vertical integration of the new features and also the services by broadband network operators is one of the essential part of the innovation strategy and companies will need to use for competing and offer customers the available services they demand.

Network operators also have got the property rights in their systems so that they need to be acknowledged and also honored. Net neutrality mandates would be flout on those property rights and hence reject freedom of contract in this marketplace.

This will also affect the consumers in such a way that they will not be able to enter some of the sites or they will be not be able to access or download some of the information since user are not restricted on the data access from the website, so that same user can go for unlimited downloads resulting in others not able to access the required information in case of emergency. Even in perspective to WEB 2.0 generation of startups and openness the social community sites are loaded with unnecessary junk data due to net neutrality as a result the maintenance  of the website as well as database becomes complex also resulting in follow ups so that there is no illegal data coming into the websites from any of the users.

Allegations of discrimination have come up with many heated intellectual debates as well as countless legislative and judicial squabbles in the United States of America. Regardless of the available veracity of the accusations in the given case, the charges are quite often sensitive and serious. Sometimes the word “discrimination” gets thrown in a very cavalier manner by the parties watching to enlist the support of government in a dispute in which it doesn’t belong. A good recent example of that comes from the field of Internet policy. A heated industry catfight has erupted between major technology companies over how Internet content should be accessed through high-speed broadband networks owned by cable or telephone companies. One of the group called the

Coalition of the broadband Users and also the innovators which adds among its members like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, EBay, Yahoo and Disney has petitioned the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to implement rules to ensure that cable and BSPs (broadband service providers) will not make use of their control of speedy networks to disturb consumer access to the websites or other users access. The CBUI proposal or the variations of it, has been typically labeled “digital nondiscrimination Or “Net neutrality”. Despite in the absence of the evidence that network operators are currently being imposed “discriminatory” restrictions on the network users.

CBUI members claim the FCC which adopt the preemptive safeguards which will ensure that the consumer access to Internet content is unfettered and full in the near future. In filings with the FCC and CBUI members the claim that cable and telephone companies are forging into a broadband duopoly which will also define the Internet for some time and network operators to encumber or the infringe in the relationships among their customers in between their customers and destinations on the Internet. Stanford University professor Lawrence Lessig—famed for leading and similar antidiscrimination antitrust crusade against the Microsoft that has endorsed the CBUI Net neutrality proposal, arguing, about the network owner is increasingly in the existing position of picking as well as choosing how the network gets used. Hence others, such as FCC commissioner Michael Copps, are speaking about the issue in far more apocalyptic terms.

We could be on the verge of the inflicting terrible damage on the Internet network. I am worried that we could be able to  witness the start and also the end of the available network or internet as we know it. Which proponents of the internet neutrality such as Copps, Lessig, and CBUI all members fear is that Broadband Service Providers will leverage their supposed market power is to force the customers to accept a variety of unsavory limitations on the use of the available networks owned by Broadband service providers. For eg, access to some specific sites might be restricted, the attachment of few technologies or some devices might be forbidden and also additional networks might not be allowed due to security reasons to develop at the periphery, or at edge, or at  the network (i.e., where consumers interface with the network). For eg, Broadband Service Providers might seek to curtail the attachment of wireless fidelity(WIFI) devices or networks by the consumers.

It is definitely plausible that Broadband Service providers might restrict consumer’s access to the network content or restrict attachment of various other devices or networks at the available edge of the system. Since there are some examples of Broadband Service Providers engaged in such tasks today, there might be scenarios in which it is exactly sensible for a network owner to un-restrict the existing restrictions or differential pricing available schemes on its speedy broadband customers. Network owners may also discourage the use of other certain devices on the available networks to stop system crashes and network interference. They may also need to price the services separately to protect network from congestion or in capturing higher revenues on better bandwidth intensive services. They might need to integrate the content vertically and conduits on their available systems, or make partnerships with other firms so that they can help them to reach the new customers and also offer them superior services. Also there might be scenarios in which stoppage of access to certain websites makes sense for most of the network operators. They might block access to certain websites that is in some controversy or it might contain material where some subscribers might find it as objectionable, or they might block sites simply to protect running the ads of a leading corporate competitor.

Consumers will consider few restrictions; say as a prohibition on the upcoming release of viruses on a broadband network, which is trivial and fully acceptable. Other stoppage, such as a restriction on the access to the competitor’s website or a specific competitor’s advertisement, will be considered an intolerable constraint by many of the corporate users.

But the important concept here is whether any of this should be considered as an illegal work and is to be prohibited by law. Most regulators adopt the regulations in governing the underlying available infrastructure of speedy broadband networks or the existing overall architecture of the network to ensure that openness or neutrality and also the end-to-end characters of the network are preserved. Also what would be the impact of such a regulation in terms of the existing economic incentives for current and upcoming future broadband operators to fully innovate and also invest in most expensive new networks. Do the rights of property of network owners come into picture here? Do high tech network operators are even having the property rights in this case. Those are also complicated with the questions that will deserve extensive exploration also before policymakers rush to adopt the supposedly simple internet neutrality regulatory guidelines. In the last, the only real question in this debate can be simply stated as who will decide. That is nothing but who will call the shots of the network owners or someone else when it always comes to questions about the use of infrastructure in the Information age. For the reasons listed below, it would be wise for the policymakers to make allow the entities that own and also operate broadband networks in the freedom to experiment with few various business models to better serve the consumers. The alternative of preemptive and prophylactic government regulation also has far too many downsides. Discrimination in this concept is something difficult to define with and also open to the very much subjective topic. Disputes over what constitutes on this discrimination will definitely lead to endless and regulatory proceedings which will open the door to a great deal of the mischief by all the companies or all the organizations that will feel that they should have greater control over how the broadband networks are well operated, either in a better-faith effort to improve the existing operation of those networks or to be frank in a more self-centered effort to game with the regulatory system to their own as an advantage. Net neutrality regulation also has the property rights Broadband Service Providers possess in the infrastructure they will also own and operate. Hence by ignoring property rights and by opening the door to the increased regulatory meddling, internet neutrality regulation threatens to the retard innovation and also investment in new broadband facilities. Instead of keeping so preoccupied with maximizing number of the consumer welfare within the confined existing systems, proponents of the net neutrality, especially the impressive list of well heeled corporate that are part of CBUI will need to put more thought and energy into idea of how the networks of the future are to be funded and constructed. The principle that CBUI members being seem to ignore is that competition in the above creation of networks is very important as competition in the goods as well as services that get sold over existing networks.

Big companies definitely gets benefited from this since there is not restrictions on the net access and usage hence they will always go for heavy use large downloads resulting in more use when compared to individuals where they also make large profits with the help of this hence they get benefited from net neutrality.

Finally, proponents of Net neutrality will also results in ignoring the fact about the network capacity usage and the profit motive which will always provide very powerful checks on overly restrictive as well as carrier activities. Carriers definitely make money always by only carrying huge traffics. Capacity utilization is one of the very important concepts in the field of networking business. A speedy broadband network without the subscribers is like a airplane with the empty seats and a recipe for financial disaster. Broadband Service Providers will not want to restrict the traffic flows or encumber Net-surfing activities for the fear of diminished capacity use as as frustrated consumers will consume less of those available networks, or leave the network altogether as free. That is why cable operators will not configure their set top boxes to middle with the consumer access to traditional television channel stations. Even though they will have the technical capability to restrict the existing stations consumers watch or even though when they want to watch them, cable operators understand that their video with customer base will grow only if they will expand the range of the viewing options, not curtail or artificially limit of them. Hence finally in attempting to attract as many as subscribers as possible, Broadband Service Providers will also need to take few steps to make sure the integrity as well as performance of the networks or to expand the range of the service offerings to attract new customers. That is why some minor restrictions on the certain types of network uses where activities will occasionally be imposed by carriers. For eg, cable companies currently provides access to the certain video channels on a pay-per-view plan basis, largely because most users don’t want, in that way so their children will not gain access to those channels. Broadband Service Providers will have to strike an dedicated balance, but the profit will motive them with a powerful incentive not to restrict activities on their networks. That is especially the case of the speedy broadband market which grows increasingly competitive hence consumers have more options from which they can choose.

Hence there should be a way to connect this to the concept of their becoming two internets, the paid and unpaid. Generally there are policies saying about the fair usage policy where the users are restricted to some limits in the unlimited plans of data usage so that if they cross the limit of that then they should pay extra from the actual rentals. This will act as paid internet where it the usage is within the limits then it is concept of free internet. This will definitely benefit the Internet service providers in limiting the user’s mainly corporate users since the restriction is made such that unlimited access is controlled.

References:

1) "Network Neutrality ". A guide to network neutrality,   2008.

2) The Delusions of Net Neutrality | Andrew Odlyzko | Voices ... (n.d.). Retrieved from --voices.allthingsd----20080904/the-delusions-of-net-neutrality/

3)      A e-book book on net neutrality, towards co regulatory solution, 2009

4) "Vint Cerf speaks out on net neutrality", Net neutrality importance By Davidson, Alan , 2005

5) "Common sense about network neutrality". Support on internet neutrality By Farber, David,   2006).