Net neutrality has been a hot topic among the media and public this year. With a topic of such prominence, it’s important to understand what net neutrality is and how it can affect you. Also featured are a timeline of important events in the debate, as well as a graph illustrating the various prices of Internet across America.
By Kevin Krilich
Net neutrality goes deeper than just possible price changes
Internet neutrality, also known as net neutrality, is the idea that the Internet should be free and open for everyone and that no piece of media or information should be given preferential treatment over another piece. For example, a video on YouTube should load at the same speed as an article on the New York Times website.
To put it another way, net neutrality is a concept says that an Internet service provider, like Comcast, should not be able to charge a user or a content provider, like Netflix, for faster access to certain Internet contents. This type of charging for content speed is referred to as a “fast lane” or also as “tiered” Internet.
Net neutrality has been a prominent topic in the news this past year because the Federal Communications Commission is crafting rules on how the Internet should be regulated in the United States. These debates came about as a result of the FCC’s previous “Open Internet Order” being overturned in January 2014.
The rules, which called for transparency, no blocking, and no unreasonable connection discrimination, were overturned by a U.S. appeals court because the FCC had previously classified the Internet as an information service. The FCC was trying to regulate the Internet like a telecommunications service, but the commission doesn’t have the authority to do that when it is considered an information service. The appeals court did reaffirmed that the FCC can promote the growth of the Internet and suggested the FCC act to work toward an open Internet.
The current state of net neutrality
This leads to where the American debate about net neutrality, with a variety of different sources giving their input on the topic. In May, the FCC invited the general public to leave their thoughts on how to best keep an open Internet. During the several months the comments section was opened, the FCC website received over 3.7 million comments about the topic, with many comments from the public asking the FCC to ensure net neutrality.
Supporters of net neutrality, including President Barack Obama and companies like Netflix, would like to see ISPs be classified as Title II common carriers. This means that the FCC could regulate the Internet like a telecommunications carrier and ensure that the companies follow rules to work to benefit the public.
In a statement outlining what he would like the FCC to do for net netruality, President Obama said the following:
“’Net neutrality’ has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.”
President Obama’s plan has four main components. One component is that ISPs should not block any website. ISPs should not throttle Internet speeds, meaning companies can’t intentionally slow down speeds. There should not be any paid prioritization fees for companies. The last component calls for increased ISP transparency, where there is net neutrality between Internet providers and the rest of the Internet and not just between Internet providers and the users.
Companies like AT&T, Verizon, IBM, among many other telecommunications and technology companies, have stated that they are against net neutrality. One of the arguments against net neutrality from these companies is that net neutrality would make it more difficult for ISPs to invest in better network infrastructure. Companies would not have incentive to improve their networks if they could not charge the companies that use it the most a higher fee to help recuperate the costs.
Other arguments against net neutrality say that it would give the government more control over the Internet. Since there has been little rules or regulations before the past few years, there shouldn’t be more intervention as everything has worked out fine so far. Another argument is that it isn’t fair to charge everyone the same price, as every person and company uses a different amount of data.
Net neutrality and everyday life
Dr. Patrick Ferrucci, a communications professor at Bradley University, says that the net neutrality debate is essential “people versus corporations.”
“At its core, the Internet is a telecommunication and should be classified as such. Corporations shouldn’t be allowed to choose and set speeds for everyone. Take a company like Comcast for example. They own NBC, so there’s a high possibility of preferential treatment,” Dr. Ferrucci said.
He added that a lack of net neutrality would stifle innovation as well. The possibility of paying more for faster speeds would hurt smaller or start-up companies since they potentially couldn’t get the speeds like NBC would have.
If the FCC decides to create rules that would favor corporations over open Internet with Internet fast lanes, Dr. Ferrucci said it would be a First Amendment issue.
“Not the government, but corporations would decide what’s important for the public. It’s the fundamentals of free speech. There should be the same rights and speeds for everyone. It’s not fair any other way. Information sharing would be hurt, though some people wouldn’t notice a difference in speed or availability,” Dr. Ferrucci said.
Regardless of what the FCC decides to rule on, Dr. Ferrucci said that online media like Netflix, YouTube, and Facebook would adapt to the changes or die. He said that rules can’t stifle progress, and gave the example of how Internet speed, stability, and availability have improved, as well as how Netflix has progressively gotten better at streaming and faster over the past several years.
Dr. Ferrucci said that society is in an interesting period right now when it comes to digital media and data usage. With almost everyone with a smartphone and a data plan and everything going digital, now’s a better time than ever to establish boundaries.
“CBS has a digital subscription now, HBO is going digital soon as well, that’s why it’s important now to adapt,” he said.
Ideally, he would like to see the Internet classified as a telecommunication and everything works as it does currently. When asked about President Obama’s neutrality plans, Dr. Ferrucci said that it works well enough for most people.
“In some ways, it probably doesn’t go far enough. However, anything that gets people to understand net neutrality is important,” he said. “I would like to see the president’s plan happen. Overall though, anytime something in public is debated, hopefully good information comes out of it. People need to be educated on the topic.”
“I don’t understand why people would be against net neutrality unless they work for one of the corporations in favor of it,” Dr. Ferrucci said. “Nobody I’ve ever heard is on the side not net neutrality except for the corporations. You could never put your trust in corporations fully. There needs to be some oversight.”
Timeline of net neutrality
This is an interactive timeline to the current events of net neutrality. Included are key events leading to where the debate stands today, as well as links to important documents that contain relevant information. WhatIsNetNeutrality provided the dates used on the timeline.
Comparison of internet prices
Another topic that has come up with net neutrality is the availability and price of Internet service across the United States. This interactive graph shows how eight different cities compare to one another. The data used for this graph was taken from Open Technology Institute.