TheTechGeek Bargains

Net neutrality is about to become reality according to the FCC Chairman Mr. Julius Genachowski. He announced a few days ago that he is going to formalize the ideas of net neutrality in an official FCC Policy. There are 6 basic principals that he would like to implement when drafting the new regulations.

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

5. Broadband providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, favor certain content or applications over others and cannot “disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider.”

6.Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks.
The rules may not seem like a big deal. I have never noticed a slow down on any service I have used with my ISP here in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, companies like Comcast have been known in the past to limit Bit Torrent traffic, and the fear is that high bandwidth companies like Hulu and Youtube may have to pay extra for favored or otherwise “untouched” traffic to be available to their site through consumer ISP’s. With the steady increase of overall Internet Traffic, and bandwidth intensive service popping up daily, it is a real possibility that ISP’s may simply run out of bandwidth for all it’s customers.

A prime example, and one that would be very negatively effected by the FCC proposal, is AT&T’s 3G network which already has limited services like Skype and Google Voice because of broadband concerns. This is due of course to the unexpected popularity of the Apple iPhone, which is now in the hands of some 26 million people world wide. If AT&T is forced to comply with the new rules, their infrastructure will surely suffer, and the cost to retrofit their networks to support high bandwidth applications would undoubtedly be passed down to the consumer.

In fact, as ISP’s begin to re-engineer their networks to support unbiased high bandwidth traffic, they will all pass the cost down to the consumer. It may not, however, simply be an increase in cost all around. ISP’s in an attempt to keep their best customers (the ones that pay the most per byte transferred, ie. Grandma and Grandpa) would likely pass a much higher price to those who use Hulu and peer-to-peer file sharing. AT&T already has tested a monthly transfer cap of 20GB on it’s users who subscribe to their lowest level of service. Others are likely to follow if the new FCC rules are applied.

The whole situation ultimately becomes a damned if you do damned if you don’t issue, because if net neutrality rules are not implemented by the FCC, then ISP’s will go to service providers and charge them to send traffic to their services. And, as any good, money loving business should do, they will pass this cost onto its users, rather it be in hugely abundant advertising, or directly charging users for its service. While I thoroughly enjoy watching people do dumb thing on you tube, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for it.

So, the question is, how do we guaranteeing net neutrality without causing an increased cost to the consumer? Any ideas?

For more information on net neutrality, check out these links:

FCC’s Net Neutrality Plan Draws Fire
Open Mobile Internet Now!
MoveOn.org
Comcast, net neutrality advocates clash at FCC hearing