October 22nd, 2009
Net Neutrality: Why the Internet will never be free. For anything. So get used to it
Call it Net Neutrality if you want, but it doesn’t exist, nor is it required when you already have antitrust, regulatory and other local and state, and international law in place. Choice, innovation and open access are the principles in a free enterprise competitive market, not the halls of government.
Before I start, I wish to make clear that ’Law’ is what makes our society what it is today. Without, we would have anarchy and society as we know it today would not exist. Also this is not your typical blog story, what follows is an medium depth look at the problems and challenges Net Neutrality would have on providers, users and government policy if implemented. It doesn’t ask all the questions or give solutions to every aspect in fine detail but does give the reader a general knowledge and sense of issues.
Overview - Net Neutrality - a philosophy or set of regulations?
Your government will ensure Net neutrality with whatever they believe it is. You may not like it, but it is coming. I just don’t know if the lawmakers know what they are getting themselves into. The world believes the Internet is open to everyone. Some are arguing and even demanding we need Law and the RIGHT to eliminate censorship and have choice in all its forms. The Internet is the People’s network and everyone owns it. Thus Net Neutrality would enable and ensure innovation, freedom, choice and access.
Information is money and money is power so the government will make sure that there is no monopoly of the Internet. There is a lot of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about Net Neutrality. It exists because of many agendas. The FCC draft rules were released today and will have open dialogue with you. I encourage you to leverage it.
Neutrality - The Swiss are not gatekeepers, and neither is your government.
Government is a constant election. Your local favorite and rival politicians will voice their views on what the Internet should and can be, yet many don’t have a clue what they are really talking about. The very concept of neutrality is completely absurd - it’s already an open and innovative network that offers plenty of choice. It’s a place where opinion, propaganda and information exists. It’s filled with every media and means to an end - nothing more. The law of one country doesn’t stop another countries law(s). Real wars occur via the Internet. You can buy and sell anything on the Internet; voice your opinion or take an education course (even if it is worthless in so many cases); or, hey, you can buy your degree from a few hundred different “universities” that didn’t exist a week ago. But if your views are not accepted or goods or services not desired, that end point is out of your (government’s) control; if it’s blocked or capped, get over it. The Internet is open and it’s buyer beware. Just because you want something from a provider doesn’t mean your local ISP has to carry it or even allow you access to it. That’s like telling Ford to buy GM parts because you want your Mustang to have a Camaro engine. Automobile Neutrality?, I doubt it.
It’s a commercial network, not yours. You pay for access to specialty TV channels now. You’re not guaranteed access to any of the thousands of stations around the world, just some of them. Did you know that you are actually regulated by what you can and can’t watch on TV? The Internet never has been nor will be for social equality. It is a social enabled environment, but it’s not something you can stipulate in law. The FCC did instruct Comcast to stop policing Internet (Bit torrent) traffic. The response was caps on bandwidth and charging extra. Advocates of Net Neutrality said this was just another way of blocking a user from accessing content. Wrong - this is addressing financial cost of operating the network and still being profitable. Did it really need government intervention and be in the middle? No.
Bandwidth charges have been around a long time, especially in Europe, Australia and Canada. This was coming whether you liked it or not. Transporting Internet packets cost money. You merely are renting a portion of it, cheap too. The Internet like the phone network, it’s a ratio game. The dial tone on your home phone is not guaranteed dial tone. That’s why every Christmas and New Years Eve the lines are literately busy and over subscribed. The Internet is designed the same way. Every Internet service provider out there doesn’t even come close to building a 1:1 ratio to any one portion or all of the Internet. On Oct. 21st, the CRTC in Canada published new rules on traffic shaping & management and Internet Bandwidth Caps for providers of retail AND wholesale (resellers of Internet service) customers. Effectively allowing the primary provider to manage network traffic with the carrier having two choices, surcharges on bandwidth or caps as a last resort. The capacity is there to handle nominal traffic. It’s managed commercial network it always has been. Simple and no further discussion is required on its construction, deployment or its design. The debate won’t end there so there is further detail in the section Monopoly Myth #1.
If there’s limited space to distribute various kinds of Internet traffic that is up to the Internet provider, not you. The good news is, that’s how competition is born. In the Internet world, that’s a great thing because it offers more diverse routes around that provider. Or does it. Many simply buy wholesale from the very provider you just walked away from. In logical terms the last mile is often repackaged copper, fiber or coax cable to their facilities that then (possibly) route to the Internet on a separate network infrastructure. And since they are start up competitors they do not have a lot of customers and the speed is faster, for about 6 months and then the ratio game starts for them. Hopefully they didn’t make their prices so low that they can’t afford to expand and keep their ratio lower than the big mean machine you just left. Sorry, all too often, that’s not what happens and you wind up being right back were you started.
But if you really want Net Neutrality written into law, the Swiss are the experts on bureaucracy and make U.S. Congress’s methods of writing law, look like they learned how in play school. There’s a reason why your Internet contract or sales agreement is very limited in its description of terms and conditions (T&C’s) or Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). It’s a best effort agreement and not a guarantee. Even large enterprise customers don’t get an SLA on Internet bandwidth and they generally pay a lot more than you do. The Internet is not a place that has any controls on it. No government anywhere in the world can regulate an international network and get it right for your specific needs. I haven’t even started down the path of Trade and Commerce Laws that this thing would collide with. In more than a few of my talk back comments, readers already know what I’m about to say. The lawyers are going to make a killing.
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| 10/23/09
