News Commentary: Is Net Neutrality Important to YOU?
On Sundays I offer comments on some of the most interesting information technology stories that I have found on the web that week. Please feel free to join in the discussion or suggest stories during the week.
Net Neutrality, the idea that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) should not be permitted to block or disable internet services and protocols based upon content, is turning into quite the hot news topic lately.
Unfortunately, for an issue that was born of end user frustrations with monopolistic acting ISPs, it has rapidly turned into a battlefield of warring business-to-business (B2B) concerns. I think that we all need to decide how important this issue is to us personally and force our legislators to instruct the Federal Communications Commission to keep their eye on the consumer-ball and not let warring giants take the field completely away from the issue.
This weekend’s news story is all about the public fight between Google and AT&T over net neutrality. Honestly, I found the heavily legality filled statements that AT&T filed to be nearly incomprehensible, but what is clear is that they think that they are being held to a different regulatory standard than Google and that this discrimination will result in more revenue to Google at their determent. Give it a read. The actual filings are linked to in the story.
CNET: AT&T to FCC Rules must apply to Google too
"AT&T has taken off the boxing gloves in its fight against the Google
Voice service and proposed changes to Net neutrality rules.In a letter sent to the FCC (PDF) on Wednesday, AT&T went on the attack
to portray Google as a powerful company that’s trying to fool the FCC
into believing that the rules shouldn’t apply to it."
Remember, net neutrality is supposed to be an issue about what you do and don’t get to receive down your Internet pipe from your selected ISP. Some companies have quickly tuned it into an issue of just what corporations have and don’t have to provide regardless of what consumers are asking for. Strategically it is a master stroke because it moves the discussion from how consumers are being hurt to what company is being helped. Every news organization loves the story about how a company sticks it to the little guy, but none of them will cover a multi-billion dollar global giant getting slighted by another or even helped by a regulatory action. Effectively, more of this kind of talk will table and/or bury the real issue of net neutrality forever. Since, all the ISPs will benefit from no net neutrality being required, it really makes one wonder who is calling the shots here.
Do you care about this issue? I do. I believe that just as the water company does not get to tell me if I can use their water to fill a pool, my belly, or wash a car, my ISP should not get to decide if I use their electrons to share un-license encumbered files via Peer-to-Peer networks, make phone calls with a third-party voice over IP (VoIP) provider, stream video from particular movie studios, or run a web server. ISPs need to become true IP packet processing utilities, regulated in such a manner that they operate for the common good as well as for reasonable profit.
If you care about this issue, I recommend that you act now to make your concerns be heard. The best that can come out of these latest actions by the big guys is that the issue gets tabled until further tax payer interest. The worst is that the resulting regulations get so convoluted in an effort to protect corporate interests that they have no or even negative implications for consumers and end users.
Please share your thoughts on this topic below in the comments section. You can also open discussions of it online - On Twitter using the “Re-Tweet” button below or via Digg using the “Dig-It” button above.
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for October 18, 2009 by Scott Coughlin
Image Credit: theglobaljazznetwork.ning.com
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I agree with you that the user should be able to use their “pipe” for anything that they choose. The data pipe is currently implemented differently than your water pipe though. Your water pipe limits the rate you can receive water, and where I live, I pay a tiered price for my water depending on how much I use in a month.
I think ISPs should try to use the same model for data, but what they’ve done is trained people on an all you can eat model. Just as there is not an unlimited amount of water you can receive in any given time period, you shouldn’t expect an unlimited data rate. To sustain that model requires a tremendous capital investment on the part of the ISP.
ISPs have to change their business model for net neutrality to work, but I believe customers will have a difficult time accepting that model after years at the buffet table.