Net Neutrality Research Paper

Nowadays all the issues associated with net neutrality has gained their incredible popularity. Many different causes can explain this situation, while the main cause of concern is hidden in the fact that the users of the Internet are interested in their fast and free access to various data on the Internet much more than in the profits of those companies, which advocate the abolition or acceptance of net neutrality. Thus, the main aims of the assignment are to explore the issues associated with net neutrality, to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the necessity to use the net neutrality principles, as well as explore the reaction of many experts and governments to this issue. The thesis statement of the assignment is the following: the major components of net neutrality is hidden not in the necessity of slowing down or blocking traffic opportunities across the area of communication networks, while in maintaining the control over the distribution of different types of information between users.

For the purpose to present the main issue of discussion to the audience, it can be said that the net neutrality rules give the right to access to fast Internet to each user. However, in the United States, the Special Communications Commission has canceled them recently. It means that now providers will be able to slow down the data transfer and demand an additional fee, if customers want to speed up this process. There were demonstrations for “open, free and neutral Internet” in the United States, while government of the state continues to ignore people’s opinion. Many critics fear that American experience may be shared throughout the world because the US Internet was considered a good prototype of a very good work of the World Wide Web for many countries.

To begin, it is important to note that Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, firstly introduced the term “net neutrality” in 2003. Tim Wu described net neutrality as “an Internet that does not favor one application (say, the World Wide Web) over others (say, e-mail)” (Eijk, 2011). In the US, the behavior of the Internet providers became a great problem for the country’s authorities. It means that many companies were disagreeing with the fact that the Internet providers used traffic management not only to earn money, but also to fight with competitors. For example, in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined Madison River Communications Company for a huge sum of money ($ 15,000) because this company decided to restrict access of its customers to the services of its competitor Vonage. To illustrate this fact, “we saw a problem, and we acted swiftly to ensure that Internet voice service remains a viable option for consumers, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said in a statement. The consent decree prevents Madison River from VoIP blocking for 30 months” (Mccullagh, 2005). Moreover, it was not a singular issue, because in 2007, it became known that the second largest American provider Comcast blocked Internet traffic to some popular file sharing sites.

Comcast has a huge number of media brands, including NBC and Universal. Without regulation, the corporation will be able to block or underestimate the speed of services that are competitors of its shows, films and other content. For instance, if a person is a Comcast client, he/she will have to pay more money for video streaming from Netflix or Amazon than for NBC or Hulu, as well as “If you’re a Verizon customer, you may get charged extra to access Google’s news or finance sites rather than Yahoo’s” (Loudenback, 2018). After all, the Internet already knows how to tell people exactly what they are personally interested in, while different tariff restrictions may help the main companies to garb a certain part of attention of the audience much more than they were able to practice before the use of some traffic restrictions.

Exploring the essence of the concept of net neutrality, it can be said that the principle of net neutrality establishes equality between all sites and services. This principle is based not only on equal rights to promote some content, but also to share equal responsibility before the users. This means that telecommunications operators and providers cannot to slow down access to certain resources at their own discretion. Previously, in many countries, different market participants, on the contrary, suggested to abolish this principle completely. The main reason of proposed abolition is a strong desire to earn as much as possible because nowadays people become a part of the constant struggle for additional financial resources. In such a way, possible restrictions are important for some market participants for the purpose to allow them to introduce an additional fee for high-speed access, for example, to popular social networks and instant messengers (Marsden, 2017). In other words, net neutrality means the principle of open Internet, in which the Internet providers pledge to provide equal conditions to all market participants, so that they are prohibited from blocking websites or using discriminatory measures against any Internet traffic.

In addition, net neutrality is the principle in which telecommunications service providers do not prefer one target over another, or one class of application (for example, the World Wide Web) over another (for example, online games or IP telephony). Although the term itself is new, its fundamental idea originates in the era of the invention of the telegraph in the middle of the XIX century. Telegrams were delivered equally, on equal terms, without trying to distinguish their content and regulate their belonging to one or another technical delivery method. Such a network from the very moments of its start to finish is neutral by its nature.

Mass protests and panic over the abolition of net neutrality have very important reasons. The society is afraid that after the cancellation of net neutrality, there is a possibility that any Internet service in the future would be forced to pay the operator. Internet business will begin to exist on the model of cable television, when the users should pay more money for the ability to have additional access to certain content. Many companies, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Mozilla, Twitter, Reddit, YCombinator, Netflix, and many others, very sharply expressed their opinion against the abolition of net neutrality in the United States.

Moreover, it is also important to explain with some details the reason of a presence of fear of abolition of net neutrality policies among ordinary Internet users. Such a situation has a place because ordinary people confuse some concepts and cannot grasp their essence by building guesses that frighten them. To explain, residential users often confuse concepts such as Internet speed and bandwidth. The last concept is exactly what the provider can provide. Many people often wonder not only about the cost of their internet traffic, but also in its speed, especially when they realize that the speed of the Internet is the same, while its cost is different.

For the purpose to explain, it should be mentioned that the concepts of Internet speed and bandwidth are very similar, but the meanings are different for them, although they are measured equally. Internet speed means the speed of information transfer (amount of information) per unit of time, that is, how quickly information comes from the source to the recipient. Bandwidth internet speed, in its turn, is measured in exactly the same way as the speed of the Internet in KBytes / s or MB / s, and demonstrates the maximum possible data transfer rate from source to destination via a specific communication channel. That is, this speed shows specifically the amount of information, which can be transmitted over a specific communication channel per unit of time.

In data networks, on a particular channel, a lot of information can be transmitted from one source to several recipients, and depending on many factors, the speed for each recipient will be different, but the speed of the channel itself is usually constant. As a result, it turns out that the sum of all data rates on a particular channel cannot exceed the speed of the throughput channel. It turns out that the provider cannot guarantee the pre-set data transfer rate from any source. It can only provide maximum bandwidth internet speed to the client.

For some reasons, providers usually write the speed of the Internet in the contracts, but in fact, they provide the bandwidth internet speed. Moreover, it changes constantly and depends on many factors, including the number of recipients themselves (to explain, how many people are currently using this communication channel).

In its turn, the provider itself can guarantee the capacity of the communication channels belonging to it. This can be a channel from the client to a direct access to the global Internet connection, and from the client to the central node of the provider, where information resources are located, or from one client connection point to another. The same provider is responsible for the main channel to another provider. Therefore, the provider does not respond for different components of data transfer, which are outside his area of expertise. If the bandwidth internet speed is lower in some further way of the internet signal, it will not be any higher. Thus, many users forget the fact that the bandwidth of the Internet channel, or, more simply, the speed of the Internet, is the maximum amount of data received by a personal computer or transmitted to the network for a certain unit of time.

Internet capacity management may be required for many technical reasons (congestion), but may also be relevant from an economic point of view. Management can prevent costs from losing their constant control. Slowing some traffic streams can be used to prevent or handle peaks in the use of network traffic. Marcus et al stated, “Peering is an agreement between ISPs to carry traffic for each other and for their respective customers. Peering does not include the obligation to carry traffic to third parties.” (Marcus et al, 2011).

For the purpose to become aware of some basic principles of the use of the Internet, ordinary users also need to remember that the speed of their personal Internet connection can be determined by many different factors. These factors include the dependence of the Internet connection speed on the tariff plan that the provider sets up. However, the technology of the information transfer channel and the load of the network by other users also influence the speed. For instance, “Complementarity among inputs is almost synonymous with how the internet works, because what defines the modern internet is that it sends data from many locations to many locations” (Greenstein, Peitz and Valletti, 2016). If the total bandwidth of the channel is limited, then the more users are on the web and the more they download information, the more the speed drops, since less “free space” remains. In addition, there also exists a dependence on the speed of loading sites, which a person prefers to access. For example, if at the time of loading the server can give the user data at speed of less than 10 Mbit / s, then even if a person has the maximum data plan connected, one cannot achieve more.

Returning directly to the topic of net neutrality, it can be claimed that not so long ago, in the United States, the net neutrality rules were abolished. Now the fast Internet will not be available to everyone, and the usual viewing of movies on the network can significantly influence people’s financial state. Commenting this issue, experts believe that now the US market for providing access to the Internet can turn into a cable television market: users in the starter pack will receive high-speed access to basic sites, and will have to pay for the use of others separately.

Summing up the above-mentioned facts and opinions, it is hard to ignore the fact that the initiative to abolish the principles of net neutrality has come under active criticism in American society. In January, the general attorneys of 21 states, as well as several community organizations, filed a lawsuit against the FCC decision. In their opinion, the abolition of “net neutrality” violates the rights of consumers to free access to the Internet and may lead to abuse by providers.

After the entry into force of the law, Internet providers received an opportunity to control the speed and quality of data transfer, as well as set an additional fee for certain types of traffic. In such a way, it becomes understandable that the FCC decision has caused a wave of protests in the United States, as well as many IT companies, including Google, Netflix and Twitter, and the “fathers of the Internet” have already opposed the cancellation.

In the past, the Obama administration introduced net neutrality rules for regulating Internet providers and “on the campaign train in 2007, Obama called himself a strong supporter of net neutrality” (Ammori, 2014). On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Regulatory Commission (FCC) voted to repeal network neutrality rules, according to which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer equal access to all content on the Internet. This means, “The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone service” (Kang, 2017). The cancellation took effect on June 11 of the current year, but heated debates between supporters and opponents of the rules rage much longer.

Listing some specific areas and aspects, which were canceled, it is possible to note the following:

  • the prohibition to make a decision about blocking any legal site or application from its customers;
  • the prohibition to Internet providers to regulate (or slow down the transfer of data) for any legal content;
  • the prohibition to levy additional funds from the company and consumers for using the Internet “fast lane”.

The causes of debates are almost similar by their essence and can be observed from a specific point of view. To explain, the December voting was marked by a public outcry related to the objections of various groups. They argued that the rejection of network neutrality could untie the hands of possible censorship from the Internet providers, and these providers would be able to charge potential payment for better service, which would be detrimental to small businesses. Service providers will be able to seamlessly make private deals with content providers, potentially downloading certain content faster or even blocking competitors. In fact, these transactions between Internet providers and other providers were the main reason for adopting the rules of network neutrality.

Proponents, for their turn, argue that abolition will better protect consumers by encouraging competition that can give a new way to faster Internet access. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who is a former Verizon attorney, notes net neutrality is an outdated set of rules that hinders innovation. Pai mentioned, “I support a free and open internet. The internet should be an open platform where you are free to go where you want, and say and do what you want, without having to ask anyone’s permission” (Pai, 2018). In his column for CNET, Pie wrote that consumer protection abolishes the inclusion of the restored ability of the Federal Trade Commission to “control” the actions of Internet providers. “This information will allow consumers to make an informed decision about which internet service provider is best for them and give entrepreneurs the information they need as they develop new products and services” (Field, 2018). The FCC also requires Internet providers to publicly publish, using their own website or the FCC website, different ways in which they manage their networks.

In such a way, having analyzed many facts, it becomes understandable that the issues were hot in the past and are hot nowadays for a group of causes. To describe these causes, the cancellation of net neutrality will give Internet providers a real impact on the popularity of sites: their download speed, free access, etc. For the user in the USA, in theory, cancellation means that his/her Internet provider will be able to restrict or block access to sites altogether, offer specific tariffs for “unlimited access”, special packages and similar things, the thought of which is now disturbing the users. Providers will be able to demand money from content providers for preferences in accessing their sites. A special highlight of this is that many providers now have their own content production companies (for example, Comcast and NBC Universal).

In their turn, advocates of net neutrality, especially industry communities and various associations, believe that net neutrality is a powerful catalyst for innovation. However, telecommunication operators emphasize that if they are the ones who invest in the construction of telecommunication networks, then content providers, who do not invest in it, should not have a possibility to earn big money using this infrastructure.

The next group of arguments is related to access to information and quality of services. Proponents of net neutrality point out that in circumstances where telecom operators can establish access to information at their discretion, they can do it discriminatory by blocking access to certain sites. To this argument, opponents of network neutrality add their specific arguments related to the quality of communication services. The last argument is related to competition. It means the following: content providers note that operators are launching more and more of their own services in their networks, creating less interesting conditions for other market players.

Moreover, those people who argue against of net neutrality also stated that consumers probably will not see immediate changes, but experts say that the effects of a cancellation may be slow. To illustrate, those companies, which were interested in the abolition of the net neutrality principles claimed that the users from more rural areas would be able to have better access to the Internet, since small Internet providers will no longer need to invest in “regulatory compliance”. However, there is a high probability that people will witness data limitations on mobile plans, by analogy with how cable programming works today. Thus, consumers will witness more agreements between Internet providers and content providers. The ISP may charge its customers for certain levels or speeds of Internet access (through a subscription fee), but it may also charge content providers for access to their customers.

Finally, evaluating the implications for entrepreneurs, it is likely that after the cancellation of net neutrality, large companies with large capital will charge for “paid prioritization” (faster download sites). In the case when Internet service providers charge more for Internet “fast lanes”, entrepreneurs, freelancers and some extra-interested workers will pay more for work from home. The idea that Internet service providers can partner with individual providers to prioritize their content can lead to problems for small businesses, new companies and start-ups. In the face of such uncertainty, the best way for entrepreneurs and small business owners is to save more. Cancellation may mean additional costs when starting or running a business. Ultimately, startups and companies should be prepared to pay for additional services from Internet service providers.

As for the experience of the EU countries, their legislation does not prohibit the management of traffic by telecom operators, but establish certain conditions for such control. The basis of net neutrality in the EU is the disclosure requirement, so that all users of the services know what conditions apply to them and competitors, and this information must be conveyed to both users and regulatory authorities. Characteristically, the penalties for non-compliance with these requirements are quite high and nobody wants to violate the law and pay such high penalties.

In conclusion, we have observed and evaluated the main issues associated with net neutrality, and have proclaimed the idea that the principles of net neutrality help users to get better access to different sources of information in the Internet without being limited in speed or the quality of the content. This means that the Internet providers must treat all traffic equally and avoid discrimination, including in the form of differentiated fees. Thus, net neutrality should be restored in the United States for the purpose to allow people to have free access to the information, as well as allow companies to continue their competition for their users on the principles of respect and equality.

Works Cited

Ammori, M. “The Case for Net Neutrality: What’s Wrong With Obama’s Internet Policy.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 4, 2014.

Eijk, N. “Net Neutrality and Audiovisual Services.” Iris Plus, vol. 5, 2011. Available at https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/IRIS_Plus_2011_5.pdf

Field, H. “Net Neutrality Is Officially Dead. Here’s What That Means for You.” Entrepreneur. Network, 2018. Available at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/314856

Greenstein, S., Peitz, M. and Valletti, T. “Net Neutrality: A Fast Lane to Understanding the Trade-offs.” Working Paper 16-01. University of Mannheim, Department of Economics, 2016. Available at https://ub-madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/40123/1/Greenstein%2C%20Peitz%2C%20Valletti%2016-01.pdf

Kang, C. “F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules.” The New York Times, 2017. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html

Loudenback, T. “Burger King pranked customers to explain net neutrality — here’s what the repeal could really mean for your internet bill.” Business Insider, 2018. Available at https://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-internet-bill-increase-2017-12

Marcus, S. et al. Network Neutrality: Challenges and responses in the EU and in the U.S.  European Parliament, 2011. Available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201105/20110523ATT20073/20110523ATT20073EN.pdf

Marsden, C. Network neutrality: From policy to law to regulation. Manchester University Press, 2017.

Mccullagh, D. “Telco agrees to stop blocking VoIP calls.” Cnet Directory: Best Web Hosting Providers of 2018, March 3, 2005. Available at https://www.cnet.com/news/telco-agrees-to-stop-blocking-voip-calls/

Pie, A. “FCC chairman: Our job is to protect a free and open internet.” Cnet for Picks, 2018. Available at https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairman-our-job-is-to-protect-a-free-and-open-internet/

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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