One of the biggest upcoming policy battles will be about “net neutrality”—whether network operators must provide equal service for all packets moving across their networks as part of their Internet access offerings. It’s not clear that operators will have to carry Internet traffic they consider undesirable, that competes with their own applications or content, or that simply doesn’t fit with their business model.
Historically, common carriers were not allowed to discriminate against some types of traffic. In return for a regulated rate of return and/or being free to operate as monopolies, telecom providers were required to provide service to all customers based on published rates and tariffs.
But all that has changed with deregulation and increased competition. Rather than being accountable to regulators, operators now answer to their stockholders, who naturally expect evergrowing revenues and profits. Particularly with cable MSOs, and increasingly with wireless operators and DSL providers, the network is now viewed more as a conduit for delivering the provider’s own content and applications. This is particularly true as voice becomes just another application, and prices for basic transport continue to fall.
Thus, operators now have incentive to optimize networks for their own content and apps, or for premium traffic from customers willing to pay higher rates—while discriminating against other traffic. This has created fear of a two-tiered public Internet: Prioritized or reserved-bandwidth for the most profitable traffic, while all other packets use whatever bandwidth is left over, are rate shaped to consume less bandwidth, or blocked.
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I seriously hope this issue is taken seriously by politicians. If this is allowed to go on it will destroy the internet as we know it. The internet has become such an important social and commercial tool I think politicians should go so far as to remove the system from the private sector and make it a public entity again. This would ensure equal footing and fair prices as well as a guarantee of better infrastructure. Phone companies would then still be able to offer their services but would not get profits for running the lines.