Net neutrality - Dr B Muthukumaran

Net NeutralityDr B Muthukumaran

Open Internet

• The open Internet • drives the economy and serves, every day,

• as a critical tool

• for citizens to conduct commerce, communicate, educate, entertain,

• and engage in the world around them.

• The benefits of an open Internet are undisputed.

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Open Internet

• Since the inception of the Internet, • information packets are transported on the Internet

• under ‘‘network neutrality.’’

• It does not distinguish • in terms of price between bits or packets depending on the services for which

these bits and packets are used or

• on the identities of the uploader and downloader.

• The typical contract of an Internet service provider (ISP)

• with a customer

• gives the customer access to the whole Internet through a physical or virtual pipe of a certain bandwidth.

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What is Net Neutrality

• Net Neutrality is the principle that every point on the network can connect to any other point on the network, without discrimination on the basis of origin, destination or type of data.

• Net neutrality is about the rules of the road for Internet users, and about the relationship between the owners of those roads and the users.

• Net Neutrality is crucial for innovation, competition and for the free flow of information

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• Network neutrality rules are intended to preserve the Internet’s ability to serve as an open, general-purpose infrastructure that provides value to society over time in various economic and non-economic ways.

• Network neutrality rules aim to foster innovation in applications, protect users’ ability to choose how they want to use the network, without interference from network providers.

• Internet’s ability to improve democratic discourse, facilitate political organization and action and to provide a decentralized environment for social, cultural and political interaction in which anyone can participate.

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• Under the end-to-end principle, • computers attached to the Internet sending and receiving information packets

did not need to know the structure of the network and

• could just interact end-to-end.

• There could be innovation “at the edge” of the network without interference from the network operators

• 2010 was the first year • Majority of Netflix customers received their video content via online

streaming rather than via DVDs in red envelopes. Today, Netflix sends the most peak downstream traffic in North America of any company.

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Net Neutrality & Innovation

• CBS and HBO have announced new plans for streaming their content free of cable subscriptions

• DISH has launched a new package of channels that includes ESPN, and Sony is not far behind

• Discovery Communications founder John Hendricks has announced a new over-the-top service providing bandwidth-intensive programming

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Net Neutrality -Issues

• No Blocking• A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service,

insofar as such person is so engaged,

• shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management

• No Throttling• A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service,

insofar as such person is so engaged,

• shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management.

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Net Neutrality - Issues

• No Paid Prioritization• A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service,

insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not engage in paid prioritization.

• “Paid prioritization” refers to the management of a broadband provider’s network to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic, including through use of techniques such as traffic shaping, prioritization, resource reservation, or other forms of preferential traffic management, either (a) in exchange for consideration (monetary or otherwise) from a third party, or (b) to benefit an affiliated entity.

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Net Neutrality – Issues

• Economics point of view: Departure from net neutrality regulation will have six consequences.

• 1. It will introduce on the Internet two-sided pricing where a transmission company controlling some part of the Internet (here last mile access) will charge a fee to content or application firms “on other side” of the network which typically did not have a contractual relationship with it.

• 2. Introduce prioritization which may enhance the arrival time of information packets that originate from paying content and application firms “on the other side,” and may degrade the arrival time of information packets that originate from non-paying firms.

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Net Neutrality Issues


• 3. The access providers choose to engage in identity-based discrimination, they can determine which one of the firms in an industry sector on the other side of the network, say in search, will get priority and therefore win.

• 4. New firms with small capitalization (or those innovative firms that have not yet achieved significant penetration and revenues) will very likely not be the winners of the prioritization auction. This is likely to reduce innovation.

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• 5 Fifth, the access networks can favor their own content and applications rather that those of independent firms.

• 6. Since the Internet consists of a series of interconnected networks, any one of these networks, and not just the final consumer access ones, can, in principle, ask content and application providers for a fee. This can result in multiple fees charged on a single transmission and lead to a significant reduction of trade on the Internet

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• Web sites in owner- or partnership with the Internet application service provider could receive a higher traffic prior-ity, what in the debate is called “access tiering”.

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Net Neutrality - Need

• ITMPs came to visibility in 2007 when the largest cable company in the United States, Comcast Corporation, became the subject of complaints when it was found to be limiting the ability of its broadband Internet customers to use the popular file-sharing application BitTorrent (Ernesto, 2007).

• 2007, media reform organization Free Press filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast, asking the Commission to rule “that an Internet service provider violates the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement when it intentionally degrades a targeted Internet application” (Free Press, 2007).

• Separately, P2P video distributor Vuze filed a similar petition (Vuze, 2007).

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Net Neutrality - Need

• In 2006, UK mobile provider T-Mobile launched its Web’n’Walk G3-based mobile Internet service, but specifically disallowed the use of voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) over its network

• These complaints began a long series of quasi-judicial processes presided over by the American telecommunication regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

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• Internet traffic management practises (ITMPs) have emerged as, perhaps, the most prominent technology regulatory issue in telecommunications of the past decade, and are inextricably linked to the problematic concept of network neutrality.

• Government is asked to make a decision as to which users have priority and whether road charging should be introduced, ostensibly to build wider and faster roads in future

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Summary

Documents

Net neutrality - Dr B Muthukumaran