Neutral is the new fair
A brief story on net neutrality under a CS undergraduate point of view, and why is it important.
Lately, there’s been a lot of debate over net neutrality, and there’s a good reason for it: depending on the decisions made concerning the subject, the Internet can change completely. If you aren’t following the subject, net neutrality is the principle that all data transported by a network should be treated equally by both Internet Service Providers (from now on referred to as ISPs) and the government. Which means that, should this principle be ignored, the usage of certain services could be blocked, made more difficult/slow, or “just” reason for being charged differently. This could open the doors for even worse service in a market sector that’s already filled with either monopoly or implicit cartel agreements. And the damage does not limit itself to content consumers only: innovation could also suffer from such measures, as competition could be reduced to having money to pay ISPs in order to be able to distribute your content. This doesn’t mean that the current model is perfect, though.
For example, according to our estimates, if only 10 percent of New York City’s 8 million people wanted to stream a movie at the same time, it would require an infrastructure capacity of 1.6 Terabits per second.
As the quote above makes clear, there’s no denying that maintaining the infrastructure of a network while providing acceptable Quality of Service is hard and expensive, and in my opinion, it is only fair that users pay for their connectivity according to how much bandwidth they use. However, one key concept that makes Internet be as gloriously bright as it is now is how open and free it is. As long as your activities are lawful, there should be no restrictions as of how you can consume bandwidth. Net neutrality isn’t a should. It is a MUST. The big problem lies in how to find balance between maintaining neutrality and keeping ISPs happy. After all, They’re regular profit-seeking companies, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
It seems as the exact solution for this equation isn’t known yet. Maybe we need a revolution in networking technology, making it both cheaper and faster. Maybe we need to have a certain control over how ISPs manage their infrastructure, or a change in their business model. What we can’t forget, however, is that the next generations should be able to make use of this great platform with freedom, both as consumers and producers of content.
References:
- http://gigaom.com/2014/02/15/the-need-for-speed-why-broadband-network-upgrades-are-critical-to-economic-growth/
- http://gigaom.com/2014/01/15/marc-andreessen-talks-about-the-pros-and-cons-of-net-neutrality-and-the-need-for-innovation/
- http://www.thewire.com/technology/2010/05/pros-and-cons-of-net-neutrality-in-two-lists/24598/
