Embracing the Power of the Internet(Network Neutrality)

The internet is arguably the most powerful communication tool invented and certainly has had the greatest impact on society and business since the advent of the telephone.  As society transitioned from the telegraph to the telephone and radio to television, technology improved and grew more sophisticated.  However, issues of ownership and control were relatively straightforward.  Even if the electromagnetic spectrum for television transmission can be government regulated and divided up, those divisions are discreet and once allocated issues of control and ownership have been decided.  Further, regulation of the telephone industry has been economic; focused on concerns of monopoly power, but not due to any inherent uncertainty about who is providing a service on who’s transmission lines.

The internet is far different.  In fact, “one of the greatest things about the internet is that nobody really owns it” (Tyson).  The internet is essentially a collection of all connected computer networks and once information is transmitted from one point to another across these networks, its actual path is not predetermined.  Once leaving a user’s terminal, information or a request for information is eventually routed to and through the internet’s “backbone” of large fiber optic lines.  All of this data traffic is managed without human intervention incredibly effectively by routers (Tyson).  Public and private entities have cooperated over the years to build up the backbone lines and the current state of the internet is “a gigantic, sprawling agreement between companies to intercommunicate freely” (Tyson).

However, after investing billions of dollars in fiber optic lines and seeing billions of dollars of equity evaporate in the dot com and telecom stock market crash, cable and telecommunications firms are becoming dissatisfied with the aforementioned “sprawling agreement”.  Companies such as Bell South (now part of the SBC owned AT&T) “are considering "pay-as-you-go broadband" plans in which a consumer would pay more for streaming video, for example” (Searcey).  The internet has not traditionally embraced such price structures and heavy competition might limit the changes internet service providers (ISPs) can charge customers.  More importantly, “phone companies are also discussing ways to bill Internet content providers for premium delivery of their services” and “Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL [have considered placing] a small fee on [bulk] email to guarantee its delivery” (Searcey).  These proposed fees on providers of internet content have been met with vocal opposition from those who embrace the concept of “Internet/Network/Net Neutrality”.

Network Neutrality is “a term devised by Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu to support an open access theory of network regulation that holds that packet data networks such as the Internet access as common carriage should be just like traditional railroads and telephone networks” (Network Neutrality).  What this term means in practice, is that once a packet of data is on the internet, it should have the same access to the backbone lines as any other packet of data regardless of source, content, or owner.  It is highly likely that either some form of Network Neutrality will become law, or private owners of the internet backbone will begin charging some content providers for access or guaranteed delivery.