Net Neutrality Maintaining Internet Freedom Robert Bahler Joe Fruland Alex

Net Neutrality: Maintaining Internet Freedom Robert Bahler • Joe Fruland • Alex Thorn • Philip Winstead INTRODUCTION A heated debate over the future of the internet is taking place right now on the issue of Net Neutrality. Poor decisions on this subject could lead to a bias internet where some sites run faster than others or to high prices and slowing speeds for internet customers based on the will of the Internet Service Provider (ISP). This paper will help clear up the debate on Net Neutrality by providing an overview of each side of the argument and suggesting three foundations for a solution. DEFINING NET NEUTRALITY To grasp the issue surrounding Net Neutrality, one must first understand what Net Neutrality means. Net Neutrality refers to the absence of restrictions or priorities placed on the type of content carried over the Internet by the carriers and ISPs that run the major backbones. It states that all traffic be treated Net Neutrality is the equally; that packets are delivered on a first-come, first-served basis principle that all content on the internet regardless from where they originated or to where they are destined is free from regulation. (TechWeb.com). Simply put, Net Neutrality is the principle that all content on the internet is free from regulation, in this case, by ISPs. BACKGROUND ON THE NET NEUTRALITY PROBLEM It may seem straightforward, but Net Neutrality is subject to much debate. The debate began because ISPs started to regulate content and speeds of information passing over their lines. One such ISP, Comcast, has been ridiculed for throttling (slowing) the speed of P2P traffic of its customers. This led content providers and many other If some regulation is not in place groups to argue that this sort of control would lead to then customers could see a unfair business practice and break a defining principle of huge decrease in speed the internet, Net Neutrality. The problem here is that if because of “heavy-user.” ISPs are given power to discriminate content then they could curtail customer content, undermine free-market, and use unfair practices to promote preferred content If given the power to providers (Scott). This would hinder the ability of small discriminate, ISPs could use the content providers to compete in the new market. Sites power to benefit themselves by like YouTube and MySpace might never have gained promoting business partners popularity under this system because ISPs would be able and slowing competitors. to slow down traffic coming to and from the site unless they were to pay them off or provide some other benefits. Internet Service Providers (ISP) assured that the regulations were necessary for both their own sake and the customer’s. They argued that without the ability to slow down traffic generated by P2P applications there will be a major slow down in speeds for all customers (Daily). They also want the ability to charge “heavy-users”, who are responsible for a large portion of bandwidth usage in the US, more. This would help fund the expansion and upgrade of their network. SOLUTION CRITERIA 1. The solution must satisfy the needs of content provider and customer. The internet must be maintained so that customers are allowed to decide what content they see and that it is priced fairly. Businesses and content providers should have an equal chance to succeed or fail based on their own merit and not by network owners. 2. The solution must satisfy the needs of ISPs in order to keep business profitable. They should not be subject to abuse because they are bound by law. 3. The solution must help maintain the infrastructure of the internet so that speed and Quality of Service is improved for years to come. Lines need to be built and upgraded in order to meet the demands of today’s internet users. CURRENT SOLUTION: INTERNET FREEDOM PRESERVATION ACT 2008 OVERVIEW On February 12, 2008 the Internet Freedom Preservation Act 2008 (H.R. 5353) was introduced to the House of Representatives by Ed Markey “The importance of the (D-Mass.) and Chip Pickering (R-Miss.). This act says that broadband marketplace to the internet has “profound benefits” and is “increasingly citizens, communities, and vital to the United States economy. It also finds that the commerce warrants a thorough internet should give “open, competitive affordable and inquiry to obtain input and ideas ubiquitous broadband for all.” for a variety of broadband policies that will promote There are two main parts to this act, the openness, competition, broadband policy and the mandatory FCC proceedings. innovation, and affordable, The broadband policy would prevent interference and ubiquitous broadband service discrimination. It would work to ensure the internet for all individuals in the United remains vital to the economy, preserves the ability for States.” customers to choose any content they wish, and to -H. R. 5353 prevent service degradation. The second part is requiring the FCC to have 8 public broadband summits within a year and report back to Congress with the results of the summits. BENEFITS The main goal of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act is to maintain the current state of the regulation and discrimination of free internet. Specifically it would not allow Internet Service Providers (ISP) to discriminate certain types of traffic. It would also attempt to limit ISPs from taxing content providers for full speed access for their customers or blocking specific content in their own financial interests. Many ISPs are already making efforts to limit traffic speeds based on certain traffic as well as cutting off all service for using too much bandwidth. DRAWBACKS The downside to this act would be evident if networks would become saturated and overcrowded. A few people using bandwidth intensive applications such as P2P file sharing could slow the entire network down, even for other customers. Quality of Service (QoS) which could help distribute the bandwidth equally would also be outlawed which would lead to limited resources for ISP to upgrade their network. In effect, this could lead to the inability to meet the needs of all customers due to a few heavy users. There is also much belief that nothing needs to be done and no intervention is the best solution. CTIA - the Wireless Association- opposes the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 because the recent, enormous growth in wireless networking would not be possible if the current situation needed to be changed. Another good argument against this act is from the Council of Citizens against Government Waste. They believe that Net Neutrality is a “solution looking for a problem” because it goes against all principles of the free market. SOLUTION 1: BANDWIDTH BASED TIER PRICING The tiers are provided based on overall bandwidth usage. Low-end users would fall into the low bandwidth tier. The first solution supports a tier-based service that makes no distinction between consumers and content providers. The tiers are provided based on overall bandwidth usage. Low-end users would fall into the low bandwidth tier. The tiers have prices set based on the bandwidth used. Regulators would then have to be established to enforce the compliance of Internet Providers to the tier system. BANDWIDTH Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred from one point to another in a given period of time. This is most commonly measured in bits per second (SearchNetworking). Internet Service Providers have a limited bandwidth available to them, and must essentially ration it to their customers. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred from one point to another in a given period of time. The current conflict of content providers and telecommunication companies is complex. The telecommunication companies own the information cables that the internet is delivered through. The content providers lead by companies like Google favor open access without the restrictions these telecommunication companies would impose. The internet as we know it has avoided an outright clash so far because the volume of internet traffic was within the existing limits (Kessler). There is no easy solution to this dispute. There has been a regulatory dispute already involving Comcast. The company was punished by the FCC for blocking select content to preserve bandwidth in 2007. REGULATION In order to set up a bandwidth-based tier system under this proposal, regulators are set up. There is a fixed amount of bandwidth currently available. The regulators established would enforce the allocation of bandwidth among the tiers. Unbiased regulators are essential, but will be difficult to establish. Otherwise loopholes and mandates could be placed in the regulation by Congress (Kessler). The Internet Service Providers therefore are stuck with outdated technology, and upgrading would be very expensive. The fixed tier system would allow the companies to avoid the cost of customers using more than is available to them (Kessler). SOLUTION 2: TEIR PRICING INSURING QUALITY OF SERVICE This solution supports a tier-based service that differentiates between consumers and content providers. The lowest tier meant for standard consumers has unmetered bandwidth but provides lower Quality of Service (Monash). The higher tiers meant for web content providers and businesses provide higher QoS and allow for higher bandwidths (Monash). These tiers are metered and have set prices based on the amount of bandwidth used. If a content provider does not wish to pay more for a higher tier and exceeds their allotted bandwidth, they may charge their customers extra for their services to make up for this metered charge. However, this would reduce their customer base. Regulators would be set up to enforce Internet Providers adherence to the QoS that they promise and to make sure pricing and tier definitions are kept reasonable. QUALITY OF SERVICE Internet Service Providers currently control what goes through their Internet pipelines. This control has been given the name Quality of Service, and it is used to restrict the traffic of what is deemed “less critical” information. The QoS service that many ISPs use prioritizes each bit that goes through their system with a priority from zero to seven (Ellis). These bits are processed according to their priority. If an individual user is sending out many different bits of different priorities at the same time, the user will see a fluctuation in their bandwidth speed. The two images on the right represent two different ISPs processing the same information over the same period of time. Provider A processes all information at the constant speed of 3mbps. Provider B provides a fluctuating bandwidth between 5mbps and 1mbps. However, Provider B still technically provides Visualware the same average bandwidth speed as Provider A of 3mbps. The same amount of data will be transferred over the same period of time, but the Quality of Service is considered lower. Normal users will not notice this fluctuation most of the time. This fluctuation will affect real-time applications such as video conferencing, streaming audio, and Voice over IP. These types of applications are used quite a bit in the business world. REGULATION As with any new policy, a system must be set up to enforce any new regulations. If ISPs are to offer different tiers of service based on Quality of Service, there must be a group set up to monitor these ISPs to ensure they are providing consistent QoS. While it is up to the government to determine the ruling on Net Neutrality, it will also be up to the government to decide on who will be given the task of enforcing their ruling. This solution requires a very technical understanding of how ISPs operate and how their service can be monitored. The regulators must be able to test and make sure that the service provided to each tier is reasonable for the price and does not go above or below the quality of each surrounding tier. SOLUTIONS 3: SWITCH OWNERSHIP OF THE WIRES TO THE CUSTOMERS FIBER-TO-THE-HOME: PAID FOR BY THE CUSTOMER One possible solution is to have communities and customers pay for instillation of Fiber-tothe-home (FTTH) in order to upgrade the internet’s The cost for instillation of infrastructure. Once a community has upgraded their wires FTTH and internet access they would only have to pay ISPs for connection to the rest would average out to be of the internet. The initial cost is estimated at about $1,000about $20 a month over a $1,500 per fiber drop. Over a ten year period the cost would ten year period. be $17.42 per month at today’s prime rate (Cringely). The additional charge from the ISPs would less than $2.00 (Cringely). Participating communities would not only be experiencing lower prices, but much higher speeds from their upgraded wiring. Customers would be encouraged to use as much bandwidth as they please because there would be a large surplus. ISP would not be in the position to discriminate because customers would be extending their ownership of and control of the wires all the way up to the ISP (Cringely). Also, ISPs costs would significantly drop because they are not longer responsible for the upgrading the internet’s wires. POSSIBLE FLAWS In order to make this extreme change there are a few problems that would need to be taken into consideration. There would have to be a large amount of support and planning form customers and ISPs in order to make this change. The change would also be very slow to spread. Also, there is a chance that without some sort of government assistance or subsidy, there would be many communities unable to afford the FTTH connections. This could increase segregation between economical statuses because there would need to be a community support for the FTTH installation to work properly. One individual would be less likely to afford this solution alone. CONCLUSION The battle over Network Neutrality is a definite problem because of the two aspects mentioned earlier. The first is that if ISPs are given more power, they could limit customer content, undermine free-market, and use unfair practices to promote preferred content providers. On the other hand if ISPs cannot regulate their own networks, and charge more money for more bandwidth, then the infrastructure could not be upgraded. This would result for a network wide slowdown for everyone, not just the offenders. Three solutions to this problem have been introduced, but there is no clear verdict. It is up to everyone to pick a solution that will solve the current issues. The solution could be to have tier based pricing, either with or without distinction between consumer and content provider. A different approach could be to change the ownership of wires by having customers bear the cost of upgrading the network infrastructure instead of ISPs. On top of those new solutions, there is also the option of supporting the Internet Freedom Preservation Act that is currently in Congress. Customers, content providers, and ISPs alike, should take this knowledge and come to an agreement that will benefit everyone instead of just their own selfish wants. Works Cited Cringely, Robert X. “If we build it they will come: It’s time to own our own last mile.” Weblog entry. I, Cringely. 29 June 2006. 20 October 2008. Daily, Geoff. “Net Neutrality is Terrifying” App-Rising.com. 20 February 2008. 16 October 2008. < http://app-rising.com/2008/02/net_neutrality_is_terrifying.html > Ellis, Leslie. Translation Please. 20 Feb. 2006. Ellis Edits Inc. 22 Oct. 2008 Kessler, Andy. Give Me Bandwidth...No one to root for in the net neutrality debate. 18 June. 2006. Ellis Edits Inc. 26 June. 2006 Monash, Curt. Structured ‘Net Neutrality is the key. 19 April 2007. Network World. 22 Oct. 2008 “Net Neutrality.” TechWeb.com. 22 October 2008. Scott, Ben. Cooper, Mark. Kenny, Jeannine. “Why Consumers Demand Internet Freedom, Network Neutrality: Fact vs. Fiction.” May 2006. 20 October 2008. < http://www.freepress.net/files/nn_fact_v_fiction_final.pdf> SearchNetworking.com Definitions. 30 Sep 2008. SearchNetworking.com. 30 Sep 2008