Net Neutrality Essay
Introduction
As the internet has grown and advanced, net neutrality has become a hot topic for debate amongst consumers, businesses and governments. Net neutrality is the concept that providers of internet treat all data transmitted over their networks as equal and refrain from prioritizing or de-prioritizing certain categories of traffic flows. In this article, authors Alissa Cooper and Ian Brown approach the topic from two angles; competition and barriers to development and innovation. In regards to competition, the authors discuss whether or not competition among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) creates an environment that favors net neutrality. The topic of barriers explores whether or not the absence of net neutrality ultimately creates barriers that negatively impact the development of products that are dependent on the internet as a platform.
Competition and Net Neutrality …show more content…
Primarily, there are two views on how to approach net neutrality.
Regulate or let the free market decide. Proponents of regulation feel that the power to decide data priority over a network that provides internet to consumers is too much power to entrust with ISPs. The belief is that an ISP should not have the power to potentially disrupt and ultimately decide with platforms on the internet succeed and fail. The lasses-faire approach believes that competition will ultimately reign in ISPs and prevent abuses of power. The authors in this journal discuss the environments in the UK and US and whether or not competition prevents discriminatory treatment of data by
ISPs. The authors point out that over time the UK has seen the number of ISPs available in markets grow greatly. In 2010, over 70% of consumers in the UK had at least 4 major ISP available (Ofcom 2010). In contrast, consumers in the US market have far fewer options for broadband internet service. However, despite strong competition in the UK discriminatory traffic management was adopted by nearly all major ISPs in the UK while the practice remained rare in the US (Cooper, Brown 2015). Given, these numbers this journal concludes that competition alone is not a significant factor for the prevalence of net neutrality.
The article the proceeded to look at other underlying causes to explain how discriminatory traffic management could be so prevalent where high competition exists. Ultimately, the authors pointed to lack of knowledge amongst consumers. Numerous studies and polls were cited that demonstrated an overall poor awareness of traffic management practices, ISP plans and technology in general. A Consumer Focus study found that most participants did not understand ISP disclosures and the most basic terminology such as traffic management (Copper, Brown, 2015). In addition, studies have indicated that many consumers feel that switching ISPs is too much of a hassle. Rather than being burdened with a perceived difficult transition to a new ISP, many consumers opt to stick with their current plan even if a better deal exists elsewhere. While studies indicate that the perception hassle and disruption of service is significant, the actual reports of disruption and hassle is much lower (Cooper, Brown 2015). Ultimately, perception is what drives consumer decisions.
Competition and barriers to development and innovation
In the second half of this article the authors explore the potential barriers to innovation that traffic discrimination can potentially create. Technology in particular is susceptible to games of “cat and mouse” anytime new barriers are created. Application based traffic discrimination can easily lead to these types of arms races between application developers and ISPs (Cooper, Brown 2015). Battles such as these can be costly in terms of resources for both sides of the equation.
Additionally, this article focused on the difficulties associated with implementing and maintaining traffic management. ISPs rely on 3rd party solutions to provide deep packet inspection technology for traffic management. Given technology’s tendency for rapid evolution, these products frequently need to be updated or replaced in order to maintain a reasonable level of service. Many ISPs have had bad mishaps with the technology with leads to a great deal of anger and frustration from both consumers and application developers. In the mid to late 2000s there are well documented instances of DPI technology incorrectly reading and disrupting corporate VPNs and Lotus Notes (Cooper, Brown 2015). Overall, buggy or improperly working traffic management solutions is costly for both ISPs and the application developers impacted by the disruptions. Given the nature of the internet disruptions are inevitable, ISPs must rely on vendors to provide good management solutions. Plus, all parties must work together in advance to ensure that consumers can utilize a new application without disruption on an internet provider’s network. Further, the relationship required between application developers and ISPs utilizing traffic management technology can be problematic. Application Developers and ISPs can be prone to finger pointing when problems arise. When a World of Warcraft update did not work correctly for consumers of Virgin Media Internet the company released a statement declaring that the issue was caused by game developer’s unwillingness to work with them (Wilkin 2011). Many game developers may be inclined to hold a grudge on unwillingness to work with ISPs that do not abide by Net Neutrality. Traffic Management and the expansion of it are perceived by many in the industry to a disruptive barrier to their potential success. Some ISPs acknowledged that traffic management was disruptive to innovation but were not willing to change their policies (Cooper, Brown 2015). From the ISP’s point of view benefits such as increased network performance and reduced costs on their end justify the practice.
Author’s Point of View It seems that authors are very pro net neutrality. While they support their ideas the argument could be made that they skipped over some points that went against net-neutrality and a laissez-faire approach. While they very briefly cited cost and performance as a potential reason for ISPs sticking with traffic management they didn’t expand on those points. It also felt that the comparison of the UK vs US market was over-generalized. Given the vast differences geography and population it doesn’t seem correct to compare the 2 countries directly as a whole. Despite the biases of the authors I believe that they made many great points in regards to their two main topics on net neutrality.
Conclusion
The internet has grown greatly over the years. During its continued evolution we’ve reached a point in time in which it’s gone from luxury to arguably a necessity. There are now even debates about whether or not the internet should be considered a utility instead of consumer good. Net Neutrality is a very important topic, yet many people still don’t understand what it means. I believe that this article does a good job of analyzing some major topics associated with net neutrality and would recommend it. The article especially does a good job of highlighting consumers’ lack of knowledge regarding discriminatory traffic practices as well as the potential barriers to innovation that can be created upon unchecked infringement upon net neutrality .
As the internet has grown and advanced, net neutrality has become a hot topic for debate amongst consumers, businesses and governments. Net neutrality is the concept that providers of internet treat all data transmitted over their networks as equal and refrain from prioritizing or de-prioritizing certain categories of traffic flows. In this article, authors Alissa Cooper and Ian Brown approach the topic from two angles; competition and barriers to development and innovation. In regards to competition, the authors discuss whether or not competition among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) creates an environment that favors net neutrality. The topic of barriers explores whether or not the absence of net neutrality ultimately creates barriers that negatively impact the development of products that are dependent on the internet as a platform.
Competition and Net Neutrality …show more content…
Primarily, there are two views on how to approach net neutrality.
Regulate or let the free market decide. Proponents of regulation feel that the power to decide data priority over a network that provides internet to consumers is too much power to entrust with ISPs. The belief is that an ISP should not have the power to potentially disrupt and ultimately decide with platforms on the internet succeed and fail. The lasses-faire approach believes that competition will ultimately reign in ISPs and prevent abuses of power. The authors in this journal discuss the environments in the UK and US and whether or not competition prevents discriminatory treatment of data by
ISPs. The authors point out that over time the UK has seen the number of ISPs available in markets grow greatly. In 2010, over 70% of consumers in the UK had at least 4 major ISP available (Ofcom 2010). In contrast, consumers in the US market have far fewer options for broadband internet service. However, despite strong competition in the UK discriminatory traffic management was adopted by nearly all major ISPs in the UK while the practice remained rare in the US (Cooper, Brown 2015). Given, these numbers this journal concludes that competition alone is not a significant factor for the prevalence of net neutrality.
The article the proceeded to look at other underlying causes to explain how discriminatory traffic management could be so prevalent where high competition exists. Ultimately, the authors pointed to lack of knowledge amongst consumers. Numerous studies and polls were cited that demonstrated an overall poor awareness of traffic management practices, ISP plans and technology in general. A Consumer Focus study found that most participants did not understand ISP disclosures and the most basic terminology such as traffic management (Copper, Brown, 2015). In addition, studies have indicated that many consumers feel that switching ISPs is too much of a hassle. Rather than being burdened with a perceived difficult transition to a new ISP, many consumers opt to stick with their current plan even if a better deal exists elsewhere. While studies indicate that the perception hassle and disruption of service is significant, the actual reports of disruption and hassle is much lower (Cooper, Brown 2015). Ultimately, perception is what drives consumer decisions.
Competition and barriers to development and innovation
In the second half of this article the authors explore the potential barriers to innovation that traffic discrimination can potentially create. Technology in particular is susceptible to games of “cat and mouse” anytime new barriers are created. Application based traffic discrimination can easily lead to these types of arms races between application developers and ISPs (Cooper, Brown 2015). Battles such as these can be costly in terms of resources for both sides of the equation.
Additionally, this article focused on the difficulties associated with implementing and maintaining traffic management. ISPs rely on 3rd party solutions to provide deep packet inspection technology for traffic management. Given technology’s tendency for rapid evolution, these products frequently need to be updated or replaced in order to maintain a reasonable level of service. Many ISPs have had bad mishaps with the technology with leads to a great deal of anger and frustration from both consumers and application developers. In the mid to late 2000s there are well documented instances of DPI technology incorrectly reading and disrupting corporate VPNs and Lotus Notes (Cooper, Brown 2015). Overall, buggy or improperly working traffic management solutions is costly for both ISPs and the application developers impacted by the disruptions. Given the nature of the internet disruptions are inevitable, ISPs must rely on vendors to provide good management solutions. Plus, all parties must work together in advance to ensure that consumers can utilize a new application without disruption on an internet provider’s network. Further, the relationship required between application developers and ISPs utilizing traffic management technology can be problematic. Application Developers and ISPs can be prone to finger pointing when problems arise. When a World of Warcraft update did not work correctly for consumers of Virgin Media Internet the company released a statement declaring that the issue was caused by game developer’s unwillingness to work with them (Wilkin 2011). Many game developers may be inclined to hold a grudge on unwillingness to work with ISPs that do not abide by Net Neutrality. Traffic Management and the expansion of it are perceived by many in the industry to a disruptive barrier to their potential success. Some ISPs acknowledged that traffic management was disruptive to innovation but were not willing to change their policies (Cooper, Brown 2015). From the ISP’s point of view benefits such as increased network performance and reduced costs on their end justify the practice.
Author’s Point of View It seems that authors are very pro net neutrality. While they support their ideas the argument could be made that they skipped over some points that went against net-neutrality and a laissez-faire approach. While they very briefly cited cost and performance as a potential reason for ISPs sticking with traffic management they didn’t expand on those points. It also felt that the comparison of the UK vs US market was over-generalized. Given the vast differences geography and population it doesn’t seem correct to compare the 2 countries directly as a whole. Despite the biases of the authors I believe that they made many great points in regards to their two main topics on net neutrality.
Conclusion
The internet has grown greatly over the years. During its continued evolution we’ve reached a point in time in which it’s gone from luxury to arguably a necessity. There are now even debates about whether or not the internet should be considered a utility instead of consumer good. Net Neutrality is a very important topic, yet many people still don’t understand what it means. I believe that this article does a good job of analyzing some major topics associated with net neutrality and would recommend it. The article especially does a good job of highlighting consumers’ lack of knowledge regarding discriminatory traffic practices as well as the potential barriers to innovation that can be created upon unchecked infringement upon net neutrality .