Net Neutrality

12/23/10

Net neutrality has been a hot button issue for several years. In basic terms, net neutrality means that ISP's treat all content providers equally. For years, this was assumed - it was just the way the internet worked in this country. That began to change when peer to peer file sharing and online music and video streaming exploded. ISP's began to assert the right to block certain types of traffic or to ''throttle'' traffic from certain sites - slowing down the speed at which users could receive data from the sites. The FCC tried to step in once before when it sanctioned Comcast for throttling traffic in 2007. Comcast went to court where the FCC argued that it had ancillary jurisdiction to regulate the way ISP's handled network traffic, but the Court struck it down. Monday's rules were passed under direct regulatory authority, but both commissioners that voted against the order and at least one of the supporters have cast doubts on the agency's legal authority. This will undoubtedly be litigated and if the regulation is struck down, it will be up to Congress to act - and that's unlikely to happen with a Republican majority.


Before it even gets to court, the net neutrality rules enacted by the FCC are not nearly as strong as proponents were hoping for. The regulations lay out a tiered approach, differentiating between wired broadband service like the kind most consumers use for home and office computers and wireless service provided to mobile devices. Wireless providers are prevented under these regulations from blocking access to services in competition with services they themselves provide, but will be allowed to block or throttle non competing services, such as Skype. Wired providers face stiffer restrictions, and cannot block or throttle any legal services. However, even that restriction comes with a caveat - it's subject to ''reasonable network management'' which is left alarmingly vague. The vast majority of throttling occurs with sites that chew up huge amounts of bandwidth, such as youtube and p2p networks, and any throttling of these sites could easily be described as reasonable network management. The upshot is that even if these rules are upheld in court, they may end up doing very little to guarantee your access to the sites and services you currently enjoy, either on your wireless device or on a hard wired computer.